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BIG  BLUE  BOOK  NO.  9  Q 

Edited  by  E.  Haldeman -Julius  ^ 


Clarence  Darrow’s 
Two  Great  Trials 

Reports  of  the  Scopes  Anti-Evolution  Case  and 
the  Dr.  Sweet  Negro  Trial 

Marcet  Haldeman-Julius 


HALDEMAN-JULIUS  COMPANY 
GIRARD,  KANSAS 


Copyright,  1927, 

Haldeman-Julius  Company. 

(Reprinted  from  the  Haldeman-Julius  Monthly,  Issues  of 
September,  1925;  June,  1926,  and  July,  1926.) 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  THE  SCOPES  TRIAL 


By  Marcet  Haldeman-Julius 


'  jiOp&JT  was  just  a  few  minutes  of  three  on  the  morning  of  the  first 

ifUm  0  t^le  tiaa^  w^en  we  roMed  into  the  trim,  neatly-paved 
,  little  town  that  nestles  at  the  base  of  Walden’s  ridge  in  the 

rssLJ^sl  Cumberland  mountains.  Well-lighted  and  festively  bedecked 
3  it  was  with  many  banners,  not  a  soul  stirred  in  the  streets ;  a  few 
iaunds  in  front  of  stores  lay,  heads  on  paws,  tails  neatly  indrawn,  eyes 
osed ;  for  once  since  he  had  entered  Tennessee  the  garrulous  William 
mnings  Bryan  had  ceased  to  talk.  Dayton  was  sound  asleep. 

Everywhere  signs  were  posted  hit  and  miss  on  buildings  and  fences : 
“Read  your  BIBLE.” 

“God  Is  Love.” 

“Read  your  BIBLE  for  a  Week.” 

“You  Need  God  in  Your  Business.” 

I  “Where  Will  You  Spend  Eternity?” 

Little  stands,  newly  built,  with  the  usual  hot-dog  and  sandwich  or 
>ft  drinks  equipment  lined  the  sidewalks  and  directly  across  from  the 
(jurt  house  stood  an  anti-evolution  book-stand  on  which  large  placards 
inounced  “Hell  and  the  High  Schools,”  “Mr.  Bryan’s  Books.”  I  felt 
;  if  I  had  stepped  by  mistake  into  a  Methodist  camp-meeting.  Evi- 
ently  the  case  of  the  State  of  Tennessee  versus  John  Thomas  Scopes 
as  to  be  tried  in  the  super-heated,  jazzy  atmosphere  of  a  Billy  Sunday 
ivival. 

*  *  *  *  * 

At  last  a  lone  stray  man  emerged  from  a  side  street  and  warmly 
tcommended  the  residence  and  meals  of  one  Mrs.  Blair.  The  very  best 
;ople  in  Dayton,  he  explained,  had,  appreciating  the  importance  of  the 
ccasion,  thrown  open  their  homes.  E.  H.-J.  was  for  driving  there  di- 
:ctly,  but  I  suggested  that  we  try  the  hotel  first.  The  stranger  and  my 
onorable  husband  met  this  with  amused  tolerance.  “What !  hope  for 
>oms  there  at  this  hour — this  late  in  the  day,  not  to  say  night !”  But 
reminded  E.  H.-J.  that  the  unbelievable  miracle  almost  invariably  oc- 
■irred  for  our  happy-go-lucky  selves.  And  with  the  air  of  generously 
.imoring  an  illusioned  child,  he  drew  up  at  the  door  of  the  freshly 
linted,  scrupulously  clean  Aqua.  Wonder  of  wonders,  we  found  that 
vo  Washington  Science  Service  men  had  shortly  left  to  go  to  the 
Tansion  House  with  Darrow.  And  presently  we  found  ourselves  in  a 
>ol,  airy  room  with  hot  and  cold  running  water,  and  a  capacious  bath 
ib  directly  across  the  hall.  We  have  two  work  tables  and  a  com- 
ftrtable  bed.  What  more  can  one  ask  for  or  get  in  the  Waldorf  or 
le  Alexandria?  The  meals,  served  country  style  in  a  pleasant,  flyless 
ining  room  that  fairly  sparkles  with  tidiness,  are  presented  to  us,  in  a 
ewildering  array  of  little  dishes,  by  eagerly  obliging  colored  waiters 
ho  also  attend  to  the  Victrola  which,  with  its  doors  shut,  pours  out  the 


4 


Clarence  Darrow' s  Two  Great  Trials 


latest  peppy  syncopations  and  now  and  then  a  dreamy  melody.  Th< 
biscuits  are  fluffy,  the  fritters  crisp,  the  coffee  strong,  the  meat  wel 
cooked,  the  cracked  ice,  in  water  and  tea,  delightfully  abundant.  Physf 
cally  we  bask  in  relaxed  contentment.  We  confide  to  each  other,  quit* 
solemnly,  Manuel  and  I,  that  we  like  Tennessee. 

*  *  *  *  * 

In  and  out  of  the  Aqua  lobby  come  and  go  continually  a  galaxy  o 
men  whose  names,  in  the  newspaper  and  magazine  world,  are  ones  witl 
which  to  conjure.  Practically  every  journal  of  importance  is  repre 
sented — from  those  in  the  neighboring  towns  of  Tennessee,  Kentucky 
and  Alabama  to  the  London  Daily  News,  the  correspondent  of  whicl 
cables,  each  afternoon,  five  hundred  words  to  England.  Never  but  one 
before — at  the  Arms  Conference  in  Washington — has  there  been,  in  thi 
country,  such  a  concentration  of  high  pressure  talent.  Even  the  bi; 
prize  fights  and  national  conventions  have  been  covered  both  by  a  lesse 
number  and  by  a  lesser  caliber  of  writers.  All  give  an  impression  o 
having  their  sleeves  rolled  up  for  action.  Quite  literally,  too,  man; 
sleeves  are  rolled  to  the  elbow,  light  suits  of  every  material  predominate 
fully  two-thirds  of  the  men  are  coatless,  many  go  without  collars,  pair 
leaf  fans  steadily  flutter,  handkerchiefs  mop,  for*  the  bright,  lovely  tent! 
of  July  morning  is  breezeless  and  hot. 

^  ^  t 

And  now,  with  the  general  scene  clearly  in  your  minds,  let  us  driv 
out — as  E.  H.-J.  and  I  did  immediately  after  breakfast — to  the  Man 
sion  House.  It  is  situated  about  a  mile  from  town  and  there  the  Defens 
is  domiciled.  An  old,  faded  yellow  with  brown  trim  frame  house  is  th 
Mansion,  so-called  because  it  is  the  largest  residence  in  Rhea  (pre 
nounced  Ray)  County,  and  has  been,  in  its  day,  a  very  proud  and  hos 
pitable  home.  In  architecture  it  suggests  the  early  eighties.  Set  on 
little  hill,  surrounded  by  the  same  beautiful  mountains  that  surroun  - 
Dayton,  approached  by  a  gravel  driveway  and  shaded  by  majestic  tree: 
deserted  for  all  of  these  ten  years  past  and  believed  by  many  of  th 
mountain  folks  to  be  “haunted,”  it  stands,  at  present,  stark  empty,  with 
out  screens,  without  lights,  and  with  a  plumbing  system  so  long  disuse 
that  it  refuses  to  function. 

The  Mansion  was  selected  by  Scopes  and  Rappleyea  for  Darrow 
headquarters  because  it  was  the  one  place  big  enough  to  accommodat 
including  expert  witnesses,  the  entire  battle  line  of  the  Defense,  an 
also  because  it  appeared  to  offer  to  them  comparative  coolness  and  moc  j 
erate  seclusion.  But,  as  it  turned  out,  on  the  eve  of  an  epoch-makinl 
battle,  Darrow,  his  associates,  Dr.  John  R.  Neal  and  Dudley  Fieli 
Malone — a  gentleman  who  looks  as  if  he  were  accustomed  to  every  1m  l 
urious  nicety,  although,  for  all  I  know  to  the  contrary,  he  may  quite  get  4 
uinely  enjoy  roughing  it — Arthur  Garfield  Hays  (the  lawyer  sent  froil 
New  York  City  by  the  Civil  Liberties  Union),  the  Modernist  Unitarial 
minister,  Dr.  Charles  F.  Potter  and  his  wife,  not  to  mention  others  witl 
whose  names  I  am  not  familiar — one  and  all  had  been  obliged  to  retii  | 
by  the  soft  but  inadequate  light  of  candles,  and  had  been  awakened  1 1 
the  friendly  tap-tap  of  woodpeckers  to  a  choir  of  song  birds  and  watel 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius  5 


ss  faucets.  Shaving  and  washing  were  out  of  the  question;  food  not 
■/en  remotely  on  the  horizon. 

I  am  bound  to  state,  however,  that  everybody  appeared  to  be  in  the 
list  of  good  spirits,  taking  the  hardships  as  cheerily  as  if  they  were  on  a 
.imping  lark  instead  of  on  business  to  which  each  profoundly  wished 
'  give  his  undivided  attention,  unhampered  and  unannoyed  by  unneces- 
i.ry  and  distracting  discomforts.  Said  I  to  E.  H.-J.:  “Scopes  isn’t 
:-arried,  but  has  Rappleyea  no  wife,  I  wonder.  He  certainly  hasn’t 
imsulted  her.”  Only  a  man  in  his  .sublime  optimism  would  have  at- 
jmpted  to  press  into  service,  at  such  a  time,  a  long  abandoned  house, 
ileave  it  to  any  woman,  young  or  old,  who  reads  this  Monthly. 

sjt  %  *  *  % 

Dr.  G.  W.  Rappleyea,  as  many  people  now  know,  is  the  young  chem- 
ial  and  mining  engineer  who,  impatient  and  disgusted  with  the  anti' 
solution  law,  arranged  with  what  seems  to  be  his  characteristic  initia¬ 
te,  for  the  present  trial.  He  is  an  untidy  little  person  with  rather  bl¬ 
inded  teeth,  thirty-one  years,  old,  short  (not  more  than  five  feet  six  at 
le  most)  and  in  complexion  olive  to  the  point  of  swarthiness.  His 
(irk  brown  eyes,  behind  horn-rimmed  spectacles,  are  fine  and  alert,  his 
tick,  bushy,  jet  black  hair  is  liberally  sprinkled  with  grey  which,  with 
Is  youthful  face,  gives  a  bizarre  and  striking  note  to  his  appearance.  He 
pks  Jewish,  but  is  not.  On  the  contrary  he  is  of  French  descent, 
(though  his  people  have  lived  for  over  three  centuries  in  this  country, 
riefly  in  and  around  New  York  City,  where  Rappleyea,  when  a  young- 

fsr,  was  a  newsboy.  He  speaks  with  the  accent  of  Third  Avenue. 

In  charge  of  six  coal  and  iron  mines  with  four  hundred  men  under 
Is  direction,  he  is,  so  all  agree,  thoroughly  equal  to  his  really  heavy 
bid  detailed  responsibilities.  In  point  of  fact,  I  find  him  considerably 
lore  interesting  in  his  job  than  in  his  philosophical  meanderings.  His 
Blind  is  essentially  a  scientific  one,  clear,  disciplined ;  his  mental  integrity 
Bid  intrinsic  sincerity  obvious.  Lively  and  friendly,  he  trots  here,  trots 
tere,  interested  in  everything,  seeing  to  everyone,  obeying  one  con- 
rblling  impulse— to  be  in  effective  action;  ubiquitous,  pugnacious,  un- 
tual,  likeable.  He  is  the  impresario — and  inordinately  proud  of  his 
r  tists.  This  is  his  show. 

*  *  % 

|  After  bringing  Dr.  Potter  out  to  the  car  and  introducing  him  to  me, 
ji.  H.-J.  had  promptly  disappeared  within  the  Mansion.  Dr.  Potter  is 
jbth  genial  and  courteous.  Soon  he  had  gathered  around  us  an  interest¬ 
ing  group  including  Mrs.  Potter  and  Dr.  Rappleyea. 
r  We  had,  the  latter  assured  us,  no  idea,  absolutely  no  idea,  of  the 
lde-bound,.  hell-fire  quality  of  the  religion  in  these  parts. 

“Just  to  show  you,”  he  went  on,  “four  of  my  mine  people  were 
piled  in  a  railroad  accident.  One  was  a  boy  of  six.  The  poor  mother 
Fas  half-crazed.  Her  neighbors  came  to  comfort  her  and  while  I  was 
1  lere  her  minister  arrived.  She  kept  moaning:  ‘Oh,  if  I  only  knew 
d:  was  with  Jesus!  If  I  only  knew  that!’  And  what  did  the  preacher 
|o?  Right  there,  with  the  dead  child  lying  before  him,  he  said,  ‘I’ll  not 


6 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Tivo  Great  Trials 


lie  to  you  even  to  bring  you  peace.  The  ways  of  the  Lord  are  His.  Yot 
know  and  everybody  here  knows  that  this  boy  had  never  been  baptized 
He  had  never  confessed  Christ.  There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  a 
this  moment,  he  is  in  the  flames  of  Hell.’  ” 

Rappleyea  met  our  exclamations  with  an  expressive  gesture. 
called  him  outside,”  he  declared,  “and  I  said  to  him,  ‘What’s  eating  you 
anyway  !  What’s  the  big  idea,  torturing  that  poor  soul  ?’  He  bristled  U] 
and  said,  ‘I’m  not  a-going  to  lie  for  her  or  you  or  anybody.  It  is  m; 
duty  to  preach  the  word  of  God.’  I  told  him,  ‘Who  wants  you  to  lie 
All  I  want  you  to  do,  all  common  decency  ought  to  tell  you  to  do,  is  t: 
be  still.  Quit  talking.  If  your  conscience  won’t  let  you  think  of  any 
thing  to  say  that  will  bring  a  little  comfort  to  that  poor  creature — shu 
up.’  ” 

“But,”  finished  Rappleyea,  “that  will  show  you  the  state  of  mint: 
of  lots  of  people  down  here.” 

>}c  ;}c  :fc 


We  were  joined  by  Judge  John  R.  Neal,  the  Tennessee  lawyer  o 
the  Defense.  Formerly  of  the  State  University  at  Knoxville,  Dr.  Ne; 
now  conducts  in  that  scenic  city  his  own  School  of  Law.  He  is  a  mid 


; 


dle-aged  man,  over  medium  height,  long  headed,  hazel  eyed,  with  dar 


hair  which  grows  well  back  from  his  high  forehead — a  Southerner  o 


mellow  personal  charm  and  a  quiet  dignity  which  makes  the  title  of  Judg 
seem  eminently  befitting.  He  has  also,  we  were  to  discover  later,  a 
innate  fervor  for  freedom  and  justice  that,  when  he  pleads  before  th 
bench  can,  upon  occasion,  leap  into  a  blaze  all  the  more  striking  be 
cause  even  at  its  height,  it  is  so  well  controlled.  Invariably  simple  an 
gracious  in  his  manner,  he  can  most  unexpectedly  thrill  and  set  a-quive 
the  hearts  of  an  entire  court  room.  You  would,  I  think,  each  one  c 
you,  find  it  quite  impossible  not  to  like  and  respect  him. 


:{c  ;{c 

Through  one  of  the  wide-open  windows,  Arthur  Garfield  Hays,  i 
striped  pajamas,  was  to  be  seen  arising.  He  waved  a  cordial  greetir 
to  the  world  at  large  and  vanished  to  dress.  A  stocky,  rather  heavysT 
man  of  medium  height  is  Mr.  Hays,  broad  shouldered,  deep  cheste>  I 
thick  necked,  brown  skinned  with  a  Semitic  cast  of  features.  In  corn 
he  is  clean  cut  and  convincing.  My  own  impression — it  may  be  iis 
correct — is  that  he  is  the  one  depended  upon  by  Darrow  to  do  the  haia: 
digging  and  to  carry  generally  the  brunt  of  the  purely  legal  drudger  1 
Certainly  he  looks  as  if  he  would  be  everlastingly  painstaking,  thorous.  I 
and  exact.  He,  too,  is  very  likeable. 

5}c  ! 

In  sharp  contrast  to  the  steady,  even,  ever  clear  and  swift  thinkii; 
Mr.  Hays  is  the  irascible,  volatile,  sparkling,  Paris-New  York  lawy(  ' 
Dudley  Field  Malone,  widely  known  as  one  of  the  most  skilful  of  L 
profession.  He  is  also,  we  were  to  learn  on  the  following  Thursday,  ; 
eloquent  and  an  impassioned  orator,  as  golden-tongued  as  Patrick  Henr 

Perfectly  groomed — even  on  the  hottest,  most  stifling  days  !— 
his  well-cut,  correct  clothes,  Mr.  Malone  reminds  one  of  the  typic 
“successful  business  man”  of  the  silver  sheet.  He  is  forty-three,  we: 


Marcet  H aid eman- Julius 


7 


uilt,  round  headed,  prematurely  grey,  with  a  clear,  fair,  almost  rosy 
jmplexion.  His  temper  is  ever  ready  for  use  and  his  barbed  tongue 
Deeds  its  arrows  on  their  stinging  way,  swiftly  and  surely,  straight  to  his 
nfortunate  target.  At  such  moments,  his  grey-blue  eyes  flash  in  much  the 
ime  fashion  that  blue  steel  flashes  in  the  sunlight.  However  deeply 
inoyed  he  may  be,  he  never  fails  to  utilize  that  annoyance  to  good  and 
sadly  effect.  A  natural-born  “fusser,”  he  has  an  alert,  if  not  interested, 
ft  for  all  pretty  women,  whom  he  flatters  most  subtly  and  happily.  As 
>r  the  ladies  themselves,  from  even  the  Fundamentalist  matrons  of 
'ayton,  one  hears  to  the  point  of  tedium  “Isn’t  Malone  the  best  looking 
ling !  I’m  crazy  about  him !”  He  is,  indeed,  a  man  to  draw  attention 
t  any  crowd.  Brilliant,  distinguished,  Irish,  by  temperament,  and  by 
:aring  a  Catholic,  a  man  who,  in  the  last  analysis,  depends  upon  in- 
lition  and  inspiration  rather  than  upon  cold  logic,  who  feels  rather 
ore  than  he  thinks,  he  adds  just  the  needed  note  of  color,  of  dash,  to 
te  Defense. 

His  wife  is  Doris  Stevens,  an  ardent  Lucy  Stone  Leaguer,  for  years 
;  leader  in  the  militant  suffrage  movement  and,  at  present,  one  of  the 
■cecutives  of  the  National  Woman’s  Party.  She  arrived  yesterday,  just 

Itime  to  hear  her  husband’s  magnificent  argument.  She  is,  because  of 
hr  splendid  height,  her  perfect  poise  and  clever  frocks,  strikingly  at- 
active.  Her  expressive,  really  lovely  eyes  are  golden;  her  light  brown 
air  is  worn  in  a  very  short,  very  fashionable  and  exceedingly  becoming 
aingle  bob,  her  hands,  white  and  strong,  move  frequently  in  spirited 
;?stures.  A  woman,  too  obviously  intellectual  to  appeal  to  most  men,  too 
oviously  their  superior  to  be  liked  by  most  women,  she,  nevertheless,  un- 
eniably  has  great  charm.  To  see  Miss  Stevens  and  Mr.  Malone  to- 
Ither  is  to  have  the  eye  both  filled  and  delighted. 

* 

I  never  shall  forget  my  first  impression  of  Clarence  Darrow.  As 
1;  and  Emanuel  emerged  from  the  Mansion  and  came  toward  me  I 
i ought  to  myself:  Taller  than  I  supposed;  a  noble  head;  big,  broad, 
:ightly-stooped  shoulders ;  a  kindly  face  with  deep-set  blue  eyes — they 
vinkle — a  face  like  creased  leather,  scarred  with  the  lines  of  a  long 
nd  exciting  lifetime;  long-palmed  hands  with  sensitive  fingers;  rather 
i  in,  not  too  carefully  brushed,  only  slightly  grey  hair — it  was  all  as 
:vift  as  that  and  then  he  was  in  the  car  with  us.  An  average  man 

t:eeting  Darrow,  knowing  nothing  about  him,  would  be  hard  put  to  it 
:  place  him.  And  he  would  not  be  very  wrong;,  there  is  in  him  so 
:uch  of  all  kinds  of  men,  such  a  vast  sympathy  with  them,  such  a 
omplete  understanding  of  all  their  needs  and  problems. 

I  He  loves,  not  mankind  nor  humanity,  but  the  individual  man.  His 
]ty  is  the  disillusioned,  cynical,  profound  pity  of  Anatole  France;  his 
,‘it  the  pungent,  devastating  humor  of  the  man  who  dares,  both  in  word 
hid  in  thought,  to  be  fearlessly  truthful.  Above  all,  he  is  everlastingly 
Ernest. 

“I  have  never,”  he  said  to  me  in  his  gruff,  growly  voice,  “taken  a 
<  se  in  which  I  did  not  believe.  That  is  why  I  don’t  prosecute.  I  can’t 
hip  putting  myself  in  the  other  fellow’s  place.  I  have,  of  course,  taken 

■ 

K: 


8 


Clarence  Dar row’s  Two  Great  Trials 


cases  where  I  knew  the  man  was  guilty,  but  where  I  believed  he  shou  j 
have  a  lower  sentence.” 

We  were  in  a  drug  store,  Mr.  Dar  row,  his  friend  Mr.  Thompsc 
Emanuel  and  myself,  having  a  cold  drink.'  It  was  directly  after  t 
session  in  which  (on  Monday,  July  13),  Darrow  had  made  his  gre  ; 
speech  urging  the  judge  to  quash  the  indictment.  A  speech  of  whi : 
Mencken  wrote,  “It  blew  up  like  a  wind  and  finished  with  a  flourish  1  ... 
bugles.”  Much  of  Darrow’s  pugnacity  is  expressed  in  those  eloque 
shoulders  of  his.  I  assure  you  that  in  one  of  his  great  leisurely  shru| 
— a  shrug  in  which,  thumbs  in  galluses  meanwhile,  his  whole  torso  p£ 
ticipates — he  can  put  more  contempt,  more  combativeness,  more  set 
of  reserve  power,  than  anyone  else  can  express  in  a  dozen  gestur 
A  master  of  crescendo  in  argument,  he  punctuates  his  theme  with  sho 
staccato  slaps  of  his  right  hand  on  the  palm  of  his  left — a  movemei 
which,  varying  with  the  intensity  and  importance  of  his  thought,  i 
creases  in  vigor  from  a  mere  wrist  movement  to  a  sweeping  swing 
his  arm.  With  his  right  hand  he  expresses  his  mood  and  with  his  ind 
finger  emphasizes  the  high  points  of  his  thought.  His  unction  is  t: 
unction  of  a  veteran.  I  can  think  of  only  one  man  who  has  it  toj 
similar  degree- — that  man  is  Otis  Skinner. 

He  is  not  a  noisy  speaker,  Darrow,  but  he  is  a -forceful  one.  I 
side  the  white  flame  of  his  sincerity,  even  the  eloquence  of  Male: 
seems  unsubstantial,  even  a  bit  theatrical.  Never,  for  instance,  wok 
Darrow  be  betrayed,  even  by  his  own  eloquence,  into  saying  as  < 
Malone:  “There  is  never  a  duel  with  the  truth.  The  truth  alw£ 
wins.  The  truth  does  not  need  the  law.  The  truth  does  not.  need  1 
forces  of  government.  The  truth  is  imperishable  and  immortal  a[ 
needs  no  human  agency  to  support  it.”  Never,  I  submit,  even  un< 
the  greatest  pitch  of  excitement  could  Darrow  be  capable  of  such  i 
obvious  mistatement  of  facts. 

He  is,  to  put  it  squarely,  the  most  debunked  person  I  have  e1 
met.  Undoubtedly  he  has  his  own  illusions.  (What  human  being! 
entirely  free  from  them?)  But,  utterly  unshackled  by  superstitiol 
fears  or  idle  hopes,  he  stands  a  giant  among  mental  pygmies. 

He  is  a  pessimist  in  theory — if  I  understand  his  position — but f J 
he  really  were  one  surely  he  would  not  have  to  come  to  Dayton  to  eng;;» 
in  that  maddening,  discouraging  battle  against  bigotry  and  ignorari 
To  my  mind  only  an  optimist  of  sorts  could  have  thought  it  woij 
while  in  the  first  place,  and,  in  the  second,  have  found  the  courage)! 
go  through  with  it.  Yet  Darrow  obviously  did  think  it  very  worth  why) 
and  quite  as  obviously  he  was  neither  beaten  nor  discouraged.  He  IsS 
a  vast  patience — a  patience  not  unlike  that  of  a  wise  mother,  who  k|ci 
her  children’s  shortcomings  and  faults,  but  also  knows  the  good  that  i:na 
them.  Knows,  too,  that  they  must  be  punished — and  how  Darrow  <nJ 
punish  with  words ! — but  feels  for  them  all  the  while  infinite  tendwj 
ness.  No  one  spoke  in  more  scathing  terms  than  did  Darrow  of  eg 
ignorance  now  rampant  in  Tennessee.  Yet  no  one,  I  am  convincl,] 
understood  better  than  he  the  reasons  for  this  ignorance  or  felt  a  grea* 
pity  for  the  people  struggling  in  its  meshes. 

To  tell  you  that  among  the  dangerous  and  slippery  footholds  of  e 


Marcel  II aid eman- Julius 


9 


aw  Darrow  is  as  sure-footed  as  an  Alpine  mountaineer  among  the  passes 
vith  which  he  is  familiar,  to  tell  you  that  he  builds  his 'case  with  the 
ndustry  and  attention  to  minutiae  that  one  associates  with  the  ant  and 
he  bee,  to  say  that  he  is  as  well  versed  in  all  the  opposition’s  tricks  as 
ire  the  great  fighters  of  the  ring,  is  to  tell  you  what  you  already  know. 
There  are  few  in  this  land  who  deny  Darrow’s  pre-eminence  at  the  bar. 

He  was  in  genial  mood  that  first  morning  as  he  sat  at  breakfast 
ranquilly  and  heartily  eating  while  mail  poured  on  him  and  reporters, 
ike  mosquitoes,  buzzed  around  him,  getting  little  for  their  pains ;  no 
fine  could  dream  of  quite  the  crassness,  the  brazenness  of  the  injustice 
hat  awaited  in  the  court  of  Judge  Raulston.  To  Emanuel’s,  “All  this 
hows  how  people  need  to  be  debunked,”  Darrow  interposed,  cheerfully 
jynical,  “If  you  take  the  bunk  away  what  do  you  have  left?”  And  to 
nother’s  comment  on  the  Little  Blue  Books,  his  chuckle  prefaced, 
You  can  Fordize  literature,  but  you  can’t  Fordize  intelligence.”  To 
hatter  poured  into  his  ear  about  the  rightness  of  this  case,  he  gave  one 
f  those  now  familiar  hitches  to  his  shoulders.  It  made  all  but  super- 
luous  his  words,  “What  is  Right  but  Power?” 

All  said  in  such  a  good-humored  tone  that  these  pinches  of  pessi- 
lism  were  like  so  much  salt  on  unsavored  thought.  Controlled,  patient, 
nbaffled  and  unconquerable,  even  when  temporarily  beaten,  he  looms 
large  on  any  horizon,  one  of  the  few  really  great  men  in  America. 

£  £  %  $  Vfi 


And  what,  I  hear  you  asking,  is  Mrs.  Darrow  like?  Very  femi- 
ine,  very  lovely.  (Slender  and  fair,  with  a  soft,  smooth  skin.)  In- 
lined,  perhaps  to  be  just  a  little  aloof,  but  she  may  have  seemed  so 
perely  because  she  was  too  busy  looking  after  Darrow  himself  to  wish 
f>  explore  new  personalities.  (She  has  been  married  to  him  about 
wenty  years  and  knows  just  how  to  make  him  comfortable.)  It  was 
n  Sunday,  the  third  day  after  the  trial  opened,  that  she  reached  Day¬ 
an.  and,  quite  as  if  she  had  waved  a  fairy  wand,  immediately  Darrow 
fas  where  he  should  have  been — in  a  pleasant  home.  They  rented  an 
ntire  house  and  there  he  had,  whenever  he  so  wished,  both  complete 
taxation  and  seclusion.  She  is  quite  one  of  the  most  beautifully  self- 
ffacing  wives  imaginable ;  as  flower-like  and  dainty  as  Darrow  is  rough- 
[fewn  and  rugged. 

^  3jS 


j  Meanwhile  in  the  old  Mansion — the  Darrows  took  many  of  their 
lieals  there— the  activities  of  a  well-run  household  actually  had  been 
;t  in  motion  by  the  determined  Rappleyea.  There  soon  began  to  gather 
ae  scientists  who  came  as  -witnesses  for  the  Defense  and  there  they 


:ere  housed  during  their  stay  in  Dayton.  Throughout  the  entire  trial 
was  the  center  of  all  the  Defense’s  movements;  there  were  always 
p  be  found  interesting  and  eager  groups  of  the  Defense’s  friends;  there, 
not  in  the  court  room,  the  tireless  Mr.  Hays  seemed  invariably  to 
e  at  work.  After  its  long  sleep  the  roomy  old  house  presented  a 
arm,  livable  aspect.  It  had  come  to  life.  Those  of  us  who  sat,  in  the 
easant  evenings,  on  its  wide  veranda  or  in  the  improvised  living  room 


10 


Clarence  Darrow's  Two  Great  Trials 


listening  to  brilliant  minds  earnestly  planning  for  the  protection  of 
thought  will  not  soon  forget  it. 

***** 

This  one  fact  you  must  understand  if  you  are  to  grasp  the  im¬ 
portance  of  the  trial :  the  ignorance  and  bigotry  against  which  Darrovv 
and  his  associates  struggled  was  too  real,  too  armored  in  widespread 
public  opinion  to  make  the  conflict  waged  in  that  Dayton  court  room 
anything  less  than  high  drama.  Never,  even  in  its  most  humorous 
moments  and,  fortunately,  such  moments  were  many,  never  was  there  i 
an  element  of  farce.  The  convictions  involved  were  too  deep-rooted, 
too  passionately  held. 

Although  it  probably  will  stretch  your  powers  of  credulity  to  credit ' 
this  statement,  the  majority  of  men  and  women  in  Tennessee  think 
of  God  as  a  being  who  resembles  man  in  appearance.  “Doesn’t  the 
Bible  say  ”  demands  the  Fundamentalist,  “that  God  created  man  in 
his  own  image?  That’s  plain  enough.”  Furthermore,  they  are  sure, 
these  Southern  Baptists,  Methodists  and  Campbellites,  that  God  took 
up  dust  from  the  ground  and  then  and  there  (apparently  much  as  a 
boy  would  roll  up  a  spit-ball)  created  Adam,  from  whose  rib  he  pres¬ 
ently  proceeded  to  make  Eve.  They  believe  it  in  precisely  the  same  way 
and  with  precisely  the  same  “but  there  can  be  no  argument  about  it” 
feeling  that  you  believe  the  world  is  round.  In  such  an  atmosphere  of 
simple  acceptance  of  the  literal  word  of  the  Bible  was  raised  the  judge 
before  whom  this  case  was  tried. 

***** 

Perhaps  this  is  as  proper  a  moment  as  any  in  which  to  introduce 
to  you  his  honor,  Judge  John  T.  Raulston.  Frankly,  I  have  conceived 
for  him  such  a  thorough  dislike  that  I  find  it  difficult  to  write  calmly 
about  him.  He  is  a  large,  florid  man;  always  and  forever  smiling; 
six  feet  tall  and  broad  shouldered;  about  fifty  years  old,  born  and 
raised  in  this  part  of  Tennessee — as  he  himself  puts  it  “jist  a  reg’lar 
mountin’eer  Jedge.”  Taken  by  and  large,  I  imagine  that  he  is,  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  a  decent  enough  sort  of  person.  Local  report 
has  it  that  he  is  a  devoted  husband  and  father— he  has  two  daughters 
in  their  middle  teens — is  a  pillar  of  his  church  and  is  universally  liked 
in  this  part  of  the  state  where  he  is  Judge  of  a  circuit  that  includes 
seven  counties.  I  surmise,  too,  that  in  his  own  way  among  local  cases, 
he  probably  succeeds  fairly  well  in  being  just,  although  even  then  he 
must  be  sub-consciously  influenced  by  his  very  reactionary  prejudices. 

“What  are  your  cases,  mostly,  Judge?”  I  asked  him  during  our. 
first  conversation. 

“Well,  I  hear  damage  suits,  of  course,  and  mudah  cases,  and  cases 
of  crimes  against  women — the  usual  run  that  come  up  before  a  crim’nal 
Jedge.  I’ve  only  (with  a  bland  smile)  sentenced  one  man  to  the  death 
penalty.  (Another  smile.)  His  case  is  now  pending  in  a  higher  court. 

I  only  gave  his  accomplice  (still  a  third  smile)  thirty  years.  For 
mudah.” 

It  is  entirely  possible  that  the  man  was  a  dangerous  character! 
from  whom  society  needed  to  be  protected,  but  the  complacent,  almost  ! 


Alarcet  Haldeman- Julius 


11 


merry  tone  in  which  Judge  Raulston  tossed  off  the  “thirty  years”  for 
ail  the  world  as  if  it  had  been  thirty  minutes,  made  me  shiver. 

“If  you  have  so  many  counties  in  your  district,  prisoners  must 
(sometimes  have  quite  a  long  wait  before  they  can  come  to  trial,”  I 
icommented. 

“Yes,”  he  agreed  (with  the  smile,  of  course),  it’s  often  quite  a 
while.  About  every  four  months — I  get  around.  And  (smile),  now 
(and  then,  I  have  to  refuse  bail  and  then  (smile)  I  don’t  doubt  but  that 
it  seems  quite  a  wait.” 

He  would,  I  thought  angrily,  smile  and  wave  a  jovial  farewell 
to  a  man  who  was  walking  to  the  gallows.  But,  I  told  myself,  I  was 
probably  too  squeamish.  Most,  judges,  like  most  doctors,  were  prone 
ito  become  more  or  less  callous.  And  Judge  Raulston’s  unfailing  cour¬ 
tesy,  his  natural  affability,  his  quite  spontaneous  attitude  of  kindly  host 
to  all  strangers — taken  together — were  rather  disarming.  I  distrusted 
aim  as  I  distrust  anyone  who  wears  a  perennial  smile,  but  I  liked  his 
general  agreeableness.  Moreover,  I  saw  him  as  a  dramatic  figure — • 
fiction  material. 

Had  I  written  to  you  about  him  on  the  evening  of  that  first  day 
jf  the  trial  I  should  have  said :  Picture  to  yourselves  a  man  of  aver- 
ige  caliber,  content  with  his  life,  considered  by  his  family,  neighbors 
tind  friends  to  be  a  bigger  man  than  his  fellows.  Realize  that  he  is 
rounding  out  the  seventh  year  of  an  eight-year  term  of  office  and  is 
o  come  up  before  this  section  for  re-election  a  year  from  August.  Then 
ronceive  of  this  man,  taken  as  it  were  by  fate  and  thrust,  willy- 
lilly,  into  a  situation  for  which,  at  best,  he  is  too  uninformed,  too 
provincial,  too  small.  Try  to  imagine  it — an  insignificant  circuit  judge 
uddenly  comprehending  that  he  is  to  preside  over  a  court  which  is  to 
te  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes ;  that  his  opinions  will  be  scrutinized  by 
udges  and  lawyers  throughout  the  whole  country;  that  before  him  are 
p  plead  an  ex-Secretary  of  State — the  Idol  of  the  South — and  the  man 
jironounced  by  unanimous  consent  to  be  the  King  of  Criminal  Pawyers ; 
bove  all  comprehending — for  Judge  Raulston  is  no  fool — that  the  world 
xpects  him  to  view  the  case  in  a  fair,  broad,  judicial  manner  and 
hat,  on  the  other  hand,  the  people  of  his  own  community,  in  whose 
otes  lie  his  future,  expect  him  to  take  a  partisan,  narrow  attitude  and 
to  show  his  loyalty  to  God  and  the  Bible  by  ruling  steadily  and  con¬ 
sistently  upon  every  possible  opportunity,  in  favor  of  the  Funda¬ 
mentalists. 

Judge  Raulston  is  a  vain  man;  also  he  is  an  ambitious  one.  There 
5  no  doubt  at  all  in  my  mind  but  that  a  bitter  conflict  was  waged  in 
is  Methodist  soul.  Anyone  who  observed  him  closely  the  evening 
fter  the  great  speech  in  which  Malone  urged  that  expert  witnesses  be 
ermitted  to  testify,  anyone  who  watched  him  closely  could  see  that  he 
/as  undecided,  torn. 

“Isn’t  it  terrible,”  he  said  to  me,  all  smilingly,  however,  be  it  noted, 
to  have  so  much  responsibility  resting  on  one  poor  finite  mind?” 

“It  is,”  I  agreed.  Within  fifteen  minutes,  I  heard  him  make  ex- 
ctly  the  same  remark  to  two  other  people. 

The  plain  fact  was  that  he  sincerely  longed  to  appear  before  the 


12 


Clarence  Darrow's  Two  Great  Trials 


world  as  a  great  and  nobly  generous  judge.  But  even  more  than  he 
wished  this,  he  wanted  to  be  re-elected.  As  the  crude  phrase  has  it, 
he  well  knew  on  which  side  his  bread  was  buttered.  Do  not  forget, 
either,  that  fighting  valiantly,  side  by  side,  with  this  ambition,  was 
his  own  abysmal  ignorance  and  the  bigotry  which,  trained,  during  long 
years,  into  the  very  essence  of  his  being,  has  been  newly  set  astir  there 
both  by  Bryan’s  flaming  words  and  by  Bryan’s  presence.  The  Judge 
would  have  been  in  anything  but  an  enviable  position  had  he  been  mod¬ 
erately  unbiased  on  the  question  at  issue.  Add  to  this,  the  fact  that 
he  saw  and  heard  with  friendliness  only  one  side  of  it  and  turned  in¬ 
stinctively  hostile  eyes  and  ears  to  the  other;  that  he  had,  moveover, 
the  deep,  repressed,  but  definite  feeling  that  people  from  “foreign 
States”  were  concerning  themselves  unduly  with  matters  which  were, 
when  all  was  said  and  done,  entirely  the  affair  of  Tennessee— conceive 
this  state  of  mind,  if  you  please,  remembering  always  that  the  mind  with 
which  we  are  dealing  is  naturally  limited,  naturally  resistant  to  new 
ideas  and  you  will  understand  much  of  the  travesty  of  justice  that  has 
been  carried  on  this  past  week  in  the  court  room  at  Dayton. 

That  first  day,  I  admit,  inclined  as  I  am  to  think  the  best  of  every 
one,  I  believed  that  Judge  Raulston  was  going  to  try  to  be  absolutely 
fair.  And  I  still  think  that  on  the  first  day  this  was  his  firm  resolve 
and  full  intention.  But,  being  very  human,  very  compact  with  prejudices 
and  inhibitions,  his  dislikes  and  freshly  aroused  church  loyalties  grew 
apace  with  each  day  until  now  Bryan  himself  might  just  as  well  have 
occupied  the  judicial  chair. 

j|{ 

Needless  to  say,  I  studied  Bryan  with  greater  interest  than  any¬ 
one,  except  Darrow,  connected  with  the  trial.  In  their  attitude  to¬ 
ward  him,  people  divided,  roughly,  into  two  groups:  to  the  first  he 
was  a  hero,  a  man  who  dared  to  speak  out  boldly  for  Christ  while  the 
world  scoffed,  a  man  sent  by  God  to  rally  the  scattered  forces  of  the 
Protestant  churches;  to  the  second  group  he  was  a  mountebank,  a 
hypocrite,  an  out-and-out  fraud. 

As  he  sat  there  in  the  court  room,  day  after  day,  silent,  fanning, ; 
fanning,  his  face  set,  I  was  appalled  by  the  hardness,  the  malice  in  it. 
No  one  who  has  watched  the  fanatical  light  in  those  hard,  glittering 
black  eyes  of  Bryan’s,  can  doubt  but  that  he  believes  both  in  a  heaven  ' 
and  in  a  hell.  At  the  same  time  the  cruel  lines  of  his  thin,  tight-pressed 
mouth  proclaim,  it  seems  to  me,  that  he  would  stop  at  nothing  to  attain . 
his  own  ends.  It  is  anything  but  a  weak  face — Bryan’s.  But  it  is  a  i 
face  from  which  one  could  expect  neither  understanding  nor  pity.  My  I 
own  opinion  is  that  he  is  sincere  enough  in  his  religion.  Also  that  in  j 
it  is  included  the  doctrine  Paul  so  frankly  taught — that  a  lie  told  for  J 
the  glory  of  God  is  justified. 

I  doubt  very  much  if — to  use  the  words  of  a  great  cardinal —  1 
Bryan  ever  had  any  antecedent  difficidty  in  believing  in  miracles.  But  ! 
when  with  one  breath  he  admits  his  conviction  that  .Joshua,  in  order  ' 
to  lengthen  the  day,  commanded  the  sun  to  stand  still,  and  in  the  next  v 
agrees,  with  considerable  irritation,  that  it  is  the  earth  which  movesJ 
around  the  sun  and  not  the  sun  around  the  earth — one  wonders.  When! 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


13 


he  flames  into  a  passion  of  righteous  indignation  at  scientists’  effrontery 
in  classifying  man  among  the  mammals — one  does  more  than  wonder, 
one  stares  open-mouthed.  An  ex-Secretary  of  State,  a  man  whom 
many  in  this  country  wished  for  President,  a  man,  supposed  abroad,  to 
be  one  of  our  leaders — flying  into  a  flurry  of  oratory  because  man  is 
a  mammal !  I  tell  you  Darrow’s  jaw  literally  dropped.  Mencken  looked 
as  if  he  were  about  to  crow  with  impish  delight.  E.  H.-J.  at  my  side 
shook  with  inward  laughter.  The  truth  leaps  at  one.  Bryan  is  a  muddle- 
head,  incoherent  alike  in  thought  and  emotion.  Those  of  us  who  have 
|;seen  him  at  Dayton  know  it. 

The  man  doesn’t  read.  As  he  himself  put  it,  “I  don’t  think  about 
I  what  I  don’t  think  about.”  (Even  so!)  The  question  is  what  does 
he  think  about?  There  are  many  who  answer  promptly:  himself;  and 
what  he  can  get  out  of  this  Fundamentalist  movement;  how  far  he 
can  project  it  into  politics  and  there  capitalize  it. 

Myself,  I  think  that  while  there  is  more  than  a  little  truth  in 
this  judgment,  on  the  whole  it  is  too  harsh.  Human  motives  are  sel- 
dom  so  clean-cut,  so  simple.  His  is  the  slowly  accumulated  bitter¬ 
ness,  the  bleak  tragedy  of  the  man  who  never  has  quite  achieved  what 
•he  has  set  out  to  do.  Failure  seldom  sweetens  character.  To  William 
Jennings  Bryan’s  it  has  added  gall.  He  is  full  of  malice  toward  all 
i  who  are  his  superiors.  His  love  for  the  ignorant  man,  for  the  masses 
'is,  I  am  convinced,  utterly  genuine  and  as  instinctive  as  is  Mencken’s 
l  admiration  for  the  mental  aristocrat.  It  is  the  scholar  whom  Bryan 
[dislikes.  He  knows  only  too  well  how  thoroughly  intellectual  people 
lave  come  to  despise  him  as,  slowly  but  as  inevitably  as  in  one  of  the 
old  Greek  dramas,  he  has  lost  prestige  until  shorn  of  real  leadership,  he 
nust  content  himself  with  a  following  limited  even  within  the  church. 
Broken,  he  is  on  his  way  to  a  last  defeat. 

Hi  H1  Hi  Hi  Hi 

Although,  beyond  question,  Bryan  was  as  truly  the  moving  spirit 
if  the  prosecution  as  Darrow  was  of  the  defense,  all  the  legal  burden  of 
he  case  fell  on  the  shoulders  of  young  Attorney-General  Stewart. 
Strictly  speaking,  he  is  the  district  attorney  as  he  prosecutes  for  the 
lame  seven  counties  over  which  Raulston  presides,  but  down  south, 
where  titles  are  beloved  and  even  Darrow  was  given  the  one  of 
‘Colonel,”  Stewart  was  invariably  addressed  as  “General.”  A  good- 
ooking,  rather  quiet  sort  of  a  chap  (by  whispered  and  perhaps  incor- 
ect  rumor  really  an  evolutionist)  he  fought  hard  and  fairly. 

I ;  *  *  *  *  * 

And  during  it  all,  with  the  perfect  taste  that  is  innately  his,  John 
'homas  Scopes  kept  himself  modestly  in  the  background.  He  is  a 
harming  boy  with  a  fine  mind — tall,  very  blond,  rather  freckled,  self- 
ossessed,  delightful  in  manner. 

When  he  first  went  into  the  case,  he  supposed  it  would  be  an  en- 
‘irely  local  affair ;  when  it  began  to  assume  nation-wide  proportions 
e  was,  frankly,  a  little  abashed.  But  a  talk  with  his  splendid,  sensi- 
le  father  convinced  him  that  it  was  really  an  exceptional  opportunity 
i  )  be  of  service.  Next  year  he  plans  to  continue  his  studies.  To  meet 
itn  is  to  like  him,  and  in  spite  of  his  attitude  toward  evolution,  he  is 


14 


Clarence  Harrow’s  Tivo  Great  Trials 


personally  popular  in  a  quiet  way  with  both  the  young  and  the  old  of 
Dayton. 

jfc  5$C  JjC 

One  was  hard  put  to  it  on  the  tenth  of  July,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and  twenty-five,  to  know  whether 
Dayton  was  holding  a  camp  meeting,  a  Chautauqua,  a  street  fair,  a 
carnival,  or  a  belated  Fourth  of  July  celebration.  Literally,  it  was  drunk 
on  religious  excitement. 

“Be  a  sweet  angel,”  was  the  beginning  of  a  long  exhortation 
printed  on  a  large  signboard  posted  at  the  entrance  of  the  court  house 
door.  Evangelists’  shouts  mingled  with  those  of  vendors ;  the  mourn¬ 
ful  notes  of  the  hymns  of  a  blind  singer  who  accompanied  himself  on  a 


little  portable  organ,  stentorian  tones  shouting,  “For  I  say  unto  you, 


except  ye  repent  and  be  baptized,”  “Ice  cream  and  hot  dogs  here !’’ — 
all  poured  into  one’s  ears  in  a  conglomerate  stream.  The  entire  court-1  pi 
house  yard  literally  was  given  over  to  preachers  who  peddled  their 
creeds  as  if  they  were  so  many  barbecue  sandwiches.  Against  the  north 
wall  of  the  courthouse  a  platform,  surrounded  by  benches,  had  been  ar¬ 
ranged  for  their  greater  convenience 

On  the  second  floor  of  the  old  brick  court  house  one  entered  a 
wide,  spacious,  freshly-painted  court  room  with  a  normal  seating  ca 
pacity  of  about  four  or  five  hundred.  I  felt  as  if  I  had  stepped  into 
pandemonium.  Men  and  women  jostled  each  other;  a  battalion  of 
newspaper  photographers  and  movie  men  literally  wrestled  for  ad¬ 
vantageous  positions;  just  outside  the  bar  enclosure  muffled  telegraph 
instruments  ticked  and  reporters  for  the  big  dailies,  Associated  Press 
and  similar  services,  sat  dripping  with  sweat,  writing  in  pencil  or  on 
typewriters  as  if  for  their  very  lives;  people  stood  in  aisles  and  three 
deep  against  the  back  walls ;  in  spite  of  the  big  open  windows  the  air  was 
stifling. 

To  the  left  of  the  judge  (as  we  sat  in  the  audience)  at  a  long 
table  were  Scopes,  Malone,  Neal,  Darrow,  Hays.  Opposite  them  on 
the  right  side,  were  the  prosecution,  Stewart,  the  Mackensies,  father 
and  son,  Hicks,  Bryan’s  son.  Bryan  had  not  yet  arrived.  When  he 
did  the  audience  burst  into  long  applause.  We  were  able  to  get  good 
seats  in  the  third  row  of  the  middle  section  reserved  for  the  press- 
seats  which  we  occupied  all  during  the  trial. 

E.  H.-J.  pointed  out  to  me  various  celebrities.  Among  them  was 
Mencken.  I  was  forced  to  look  twice,  so  different  does  that  gentle¬ 
man  appear  from  the  pictures  and  cartoons  of  him.  He  looks  as  if 
he  were  in  his  late  thirties — some  six  or  eight  years  younger  thar. 
his  avowed  forty-four.  He  is  at  once  stockier  than  I  had  supposed  and 
much  less  ponderous  in  manner.  Fie  is  affable  and  friendly.  He  lis¬ 
tened  to  practically  the  entire  trial  standing  with  several  other  journal¬ 
ists  and  a  movie  man  or  two,  on  a  table  in  a  corner  of  the  court  room 
He  faced  the  pleading  advocates  and  incidentally  the  audience.  Menck¬ 
en’s  most  usual  expression  when  a  member  of  the  prosecution  spoke 


was  one  of  delighted  incredulity.  He  has  the  most  amazing  china- 


blue  eyes  that  survey  the  world  with  a  sort  of  “Where-did-you-come- 
from-baby-dear”  surprised,  ingenuous  look,  which  changes  directly  he 


begins  to  talk. 


fai 


k 


Marcel  Haldeman- Julius 


15 


At  this  late  date  there  is  something  both  amusing  and  exasper- 
!  ating  in  the  memory  of  the  tenseness  with  which,  that  first  day,  we 
I  watched  Darrow’s  cautious  selection  of  the  jury. 

I  can  still  hear  his  kind:  “And  you  think  you  could  be  fair?” 
[Invariably  the  answer  was  “Yes.”  “And,”  Darrow  would  conclude  at 
(last  “You  will  be  fair?”  Inimitable  his  manner  of  asking  this  ques¬ 
tion.  His  tone  imputed  to  the  would-be  juror  the  highest  motives, 
made  of  each  man  a  friend.  Those  he  did  not  wish,  he  contrived  by 
[adroit  questioning  to  show  up  so  clearly  that  the  Judge  was  forced  to 
excuse  them.  One  hard-headed,  lying  preacher  caused  much  amuse¬ 
ment.  Although  he  had  talked  steadily  against  evolution  in  the  pulpit 
and  was  known  to  be  bitter  against  it,  he  insisted  that  he  could  be 
i  impartial.  Truth  to  tell  the  pickings  were  pretty  poor,  as  Darrow 
soon  realized.  In  the  end,  from  one  hundred  men  summoned  for  that 
purpose  twelve  had  been  drawn  and  accepted.  Eleven  of  them  were 
church  members;  one  “went  occasionally.”  Eleven  (ten  of  whom  were 
farmers  and  one  a  shipping  clerk)  admitted  that  they  did  not  believe 
in  evolution  but  declared  they  were  not  against  being  convinced  in 
its  favor.  A  school  teacher,  with  flowing  moustache,  strongly  sus¬ 
pected  by  the  prosecution  of  too  scientific  leanings  (  !)  was  requestioned 
by  them  on  Monday,  but  he  stood  his  ground,  convinced  the  Judge  of 
his  neutrality,  and  in  the  end,  went  unchallenged. 

Not  even  Darrow  could  have  guessed  of  how  little  importance  those 
men  were  to  be.  The  case  was  not  to  be  tried  before  them.  It  was 
to  be  tried  only,  in  effect,  before  Judge  Raulston. 

>jc  *  5fc  >}c 

Many  people  do  not  fully  comprehend  the  czar-like  power  a  Judge 
wields.  He  alone  decides  what  testimony  is  and  is  not  admissible. 

The  Defense  sought  to  prove  that  evolution  did  not  conflict  with 
[:he  story  of  Divine  creation  of  man  as  taught  in  the  Bible.  In  order 
o  prove  this  it  was  necessary  to  introduce  scientists  and  Bible  scholars 
is  witnesses.  The  Prosecution  protested  against  the  admission  of  any 
:estimony  these  “experts”  might  give,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  “ir¬ 
relevant”  ;  the  second  phrase  of  the  law  “to  teach  instead  that  man 
-ias  descended  from  a  lower  order  of  animals”  making,  according  to 
heir  contention,  unnecessary  any  discussion  of  the  first  part  of  the  law. 

Even  native  Tennesseeans  felt  that  the  Prosecution  was  “hiding 
behind  a  technicality.”  “Bryan  challenged  the  evolutionists  to  a  duel' 
md  thtw  he  ran  away,”  was  a  very  frequently  heard  remark,  when, 
,m  Friday  morning,  one  week  from  the  day  the  trial  started,  Judge 
laulston,  in  a  long  opinion,  ruled  that  the  question  was  purely  one  of 
vhether  or  not  Scopes  had  taught  certain  passages  in  Hunter’s  Biology. 

;f:  >{c  ^ 

Of  the  cleverness  with  which,  although  his  witnesses’  testimony 
vas  not  admitted,  Darrow  contrived  to  get  it  all  into  the  record,  you 
lave,  I  am  sure,  read  long  and  detailed  accounts  in  the  daily  papers, 
'or  the  first  time  I  learned  that  no  new  evidence  can  be  submitted 
;io  the  higher  court.  The  Supreme  Court  is,  strictly  speaking,  a  board 
if  review.  It  reviews  the  entire  case  and,  if  it  so  sees  fit,  reverses 


16 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


the  circuit  or  district  Judge’s  rulings.  Hence  Darrow’s  and  Hays 
eternal  vigilance  and  concern  for  “the  record.”  But  with  Raulston’s 
ruling  any  hope  of  a  favorable  verdict  in  the  lower  court  collapsed. 

*  *  *  *  * 

Boiling  with  the  particular  rage  which  only  unfairness  can  arous( 
in  me — in  this  case  an  unfairness  so  flagrant,  so  brazen,  so  pleasec 
with  itself  that  even  to  contemplate  it  was  maddening — I  rose  from 
my  seat  and  started,  with  the  surging  throng,  to  leave  the  court  house 
Directly  in  front  of  me  stood  a  broad-shouldered,  six-foot  man  whc 
had  been  pointed  out  to  me  as  “the  author  of  the  law” — Mr.  Butler. 

I  knew,  of  course,  that  you  would  want  to  hear  about  him,  so 
drawing  a  long  breath,  I  took  myself  in  hand,  so  to  speak,  smoothec 
down  my  ruffled  temper,  and  addressed  him:  “Are  you  Mr.  Butler?” 

“Yes.” 

“I  should  like  to  interview  you.” 

A  smile,  so  good-humored  that  one  could  not  refuse  one  in  return 
broke  over  his  kindly  face.  Aggravatingly  enough,  I  began  to  lik< 
him.  “All  right,”  he  agreed,  “I  suppose  you  think  I  ought  to  be  hung.’ 

“I  want  to  know  how  you  came  to  think  of  this  law  in  the  firs' 
place — why  you  decided  it  was  needed.” 

“All  right.  Let’s  get  out  in  the  shade  where  it  is  cool  and  thei 
we  can  talk  easy.” 

I  agreed  and  followed  cheerfully  in  the  wake  of  his  huge  form  as 
in  the  midst  of  the  press,  we  leisurely  descended  the  stairs.  On  th< 
courthouse  lawn,  under  the  wide-spreading  branches  of  a  hard  maple 
we  sat  down.  Mr.  Butler  hailed  a  passing  boy  and  bought  two  ice- 
cold  bottles  of  Coca  Cola.  And  thus,  in  sociable  mood,  we  began  to  chat 

He  is  a  type  of  man  with  whom  I  am  thoroughly  familiar  and  foi 
whom  long  experience  has  taught  me  to  have  a  genuine  regard.  . 
have  dozens  of  farmer  neighbors — and  so,  - 1  am  sure,  have  many  o: 
you — cut  off  precisely  the  same  piece  of  cloth.  As  he  sat  befcfre  me 
this  big  Indian-brown  six-footer,  with  his  keen  grey  eyes  and  good 
even  teeth,  so  frequently  revealed  by  his  pleasant  smile,  I  felt  that  thd 
man  was  sincere  and  straight-forward  through  and  through. 

“Is  it  true,  Mr.  Butler,  that  there  are  no  railroads  in  your  county?’ 

“Yes,  Macon  County  is  like  more  than  one  county  in  Tennessee 
We  have  good  highroads  though.  We  don’t  have  any  trouble  market 
ing  our  crops.”  j 

“Are  you  a  farmer?” 

“Yes.  I  used  to  be  a  school  teacher  too.  Taught  school  five  years 
You  know  the  way  we  do  down  here — raised  my  crop  in  the  spring 
and  taught  school  in  the  winter.” 

“What  do  you  raise  mostly  down  here?” 

Thus  launched  on  a  subject  congenial  to  us  both,  we  found  mdcll 
to  say  and  any  possible  stiffness  vanished  as  if  by  magic  from  ou 
conversation.  Mr.  Butler  was,  I  found,  well  informed  on  farming  ii 
general  and  conditions  peculiar  to  Tennessee.  He  works  120  acre 
about  175  miles  from  Dayton  and  three  miles  from  a  little  town  of  80< 
people — La  Fayette,  Macon’s  county  seat.  It  was  28  years  ago,  whei- 
he  married,  that  he  took  possession  of  this  farm  which  he  owns,  a 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


17 


did  his  father,  grandfather,  and  great  grandfather  before  him.  There 
he  raises  corn  and  tobacco  (of  course,  in  Tennessee!)  but  also  wheat, 
rye,  oats,  cow  peas,  soy  beans  and  clover;  Duroc  Jersey  hogs  and 
chickens;  and,  of  course,  a  few  cows,  enough  for  his  own  use  and  to 
provide  skimmed  milk  for  the  aforesaid  hogs. 

I  drew  our  talk  back  from  the  farm  yard  to  the  topic  that  has 
been  the  cause  of  one  of  the  greatest  battles  that  the  world  has  known 
since  the  day  of  Galileo. 

“What  church  is  it  that  you  belong  to,  Mr.  Butler?”  I  asked. 

“Baptist.  Primitive  Baptist.  I  am  clerk  of  the  district  session  and 
clerk  of  my  own  church,”  he  added  with  pardonable  pride. 

I  thought  I  had  misunderstood.  “What  kind  of  Baptist?” 

“Primitive,”  he  repeated  firmly.  Then,  seeing  my  rather  puzzled 
expression,  he  explained.  “There  is  more  than  one  kind  of  Baptist, 
you  know.” 

“I  didn’t  know.” 

“Yes.  There’s  the  Primitive  Baptists,  the  Missionary  Baptists — 
they  are  the  largest  group — the  Free  Will  Baptists,  and  the  General 
Baptists.  In  1689,  at  the  time  of  the  London  Confession  (I  think  he 
said — it  may  have  been  convention),  the  Baptists  were  all  one  family, 
out  in  1792,  two  great  leaders  (he  gave  their  names)  agitated  the 
question  of  whether  or  not  the  Heathen  would  be  lost  unless  they  heard 
he  gospel.  The  Missionary  Baptists  held  they  would  and  the  Primi- 
ive  Baptists  held  they  wouldn’t.  Now  I  don’t  believe,  and  no  Primi- 
ive  Baptist  believes,  that  God  would  condemn  a  man  just  because  he 
lever  heard  of  the  gospel.” 

I  had  heard  many  and  various  tales  of  Mr.  Butler  before  I  met 
lim  and,  as  I  have  said,  I  was  in  anything  but  a  sympathetic  mood 
vhen  the  meeting  took  place.  But  as  he  talked  in  his  pleasant  voice 
vith  its  strong  southern  accent,  I  summed  him  up  to  myself  in  some- 
Ihing  like  this  fashion :  Uncultivated,  but  very  far  from  illiterate ; 
ineducated  in  the  narrower  sense,  but  in  the  broader  one  anything  but 
n  ignorant  man ;  simple-hearted,  obviously  country-bred  and  provin- 
ial,  but  full  of  an  innate  courtesy  and  kindliness ;  unsophisticated,  but 
ot  uncouth. 

“You  like  fair  play,  I  gather,”  I  smiled. 

“Yes,  I  do,”  he  returned  firmly.  “I  used  to  be  a  great  baseball 
layer — not  in  any  of  the  big  leagues,  of  course,  but  in  our  own  part 
f  the  country  here.  Anyone  who  has  played  baseball  likes  to  see 
lings  done  fair.  And  I  think  the  ‘Jedge’  should  have  let  those  ex¬ 
erts  testify  if  Darrow  wanted  ’em.  I  am  not  afraid  of  expert  testi- 
lony.”  (This  was  said  convincingly  and  without  the  slightest  touch 
f  braggadocio.)  “Darrow  could  have  put  ’em  on  and  made  his  points  and 
len  Bryan  could  have  cross-questioned  ’em  and  brought  on  expert 
ible  witnesses  too  and  made  his  points.  That  would  have  been  fair 
)  everybody 

“When  did  you  first  think  of  this  law — or  did  someone  suggest 
to  you?” 

“I’ll  tell  you,”  he  said,  and  this,  condensed,  is  the  gist  of  his  story  : 


18 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


About  four  years  ago  a  preacher  who  came  around  once  a  month 
to  Butler’s  church  alluded,  though  not  by  name,  to  the  fact  that  a 
young  woman  whom  the  community  knew  had,  after  a  university 
course,  returned  believing  in  evolution  and  disbelieving  in  God.  This 
set  Butler  to  thinking.  What  might  happen  to  his  own  boys?  (He 
has  three;  his  two  daughters  are  married.)  To  his  neighbor’s  children; 
Come  to  that,  they  didn’t  need  to  go  as  far  away  as  universities 
Evolution  was  taught  in  the  high  schools.  It  was  not  right  that  the) 
should  raise  up  their  children  to  be  God-fearing  and  then  have  the 
schools  teach  them  something  that  took  that  faith  away.  Thus  Butlei 
meditated  long  and  earnestly  upon  the  preacher’s  comments. 

In  1922  he  was  urged  to  run  for  Representative  of  his  district 
There  are  three  counties  in  it:  Macon,  Sumner  and  Trousdale.  Sum 
ner  County,  thanks  to  a  good  creamery  trade,  does  dairying  and  in  the 
lower  end  of  it  Southdown  sheep  are  raised,  as  also  in  Trousdah 
County.  Butler  agreed  to  run,  and  in  his  circulars  stated  the  neces 
sity  of  a  law  prohibiting  the  teaching  of  evolution  in  the  schools 
“Ninety-nine  people  out  of  a  hundred  in  my  district  thought  just  lib 
1  did,  too,”  he  explained.  “I  say  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  because 
there  may  be  some  hold  different  from  what  I  think  they  do,  but  s< 
far  as  I  know  there  isn’t  a  one  in  the  whole  district  that  thinks  evolu 
tion — of  man,  that  is — can  be  the  way  the  scientists  tell  it.” 

“Do  you  mean,”  I  questioned,  “that  they  believe  evolution  and  th 
Bible  conflict?” 

“Yes.” 

“Do  you  know  that  lots  of  good  Baptists  believe  in  both — that  the;! 
think  that  to  God  ages  are  but  a  day?” 

Mr.  Butler  considered  this.  “Yes,”  he  answered.  “I  know  the' 
do.”  Then,  after  a  pause,  “I  reckon  it’s  a  good  deal  like  politics,  th 
way  you’ve  been  raised.”  A  true  word  indeed !  “I  didn’t,”  he  con 
tinued,  “introduce  the  bill  though,  and  in  1924  when  I  ran  again  1 
made  up  my  own  mind  that  if  I  was  elected  this  time  I  sure  was  goin 
to  get  that  law  passed,  and  the  morning  I  was  forty-nine  I  wrote  i  \ 
out  after  breakfast  at  home  just  like  I  wanted  it.  It  didn’t  quite  su 
me  and  I  wrote  it  out  three  or  four  ways,  but  I  came  back  to  the  firs 
draft  after  all.  I  had  the  stenographer  up  at  the  Capitol  type  it  fo 
me — and  that’s  the  way  the  law  stands  now — just  the  way  I  firs 
wrote  it.” 

Through  my  mind  echoed  the  now  all  too  familiar  words:  “B 
it  enacted  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Tennessee,  That  : 
shall  be  unlawful  for  any  teacher  in  any  of  the  universities,  normal 
and  all  other  public  schools  of  the  State  which  are  supported  in  who! 
or  in  part  by  the  public  school  funds  of  the  State,  to  teach  any  theor 
that  denies  the  story  of  the  Divine  creation  of  man  as  taught  in  tb 
Bible,  and  to  teach  instead  that  man  has  descended  from  a  lower  orde 
of  animals.” 

Can  you  picture  Butler  as  he  sat  down  in  the  pleasant,  homely  lb 
ing  room  of  the  old  farm  house  before  the  quaint  fire-place  with  i 
stone  jambs— it  was  built,  he  tells  me,  before  the  days  of  fire  brick-! 
and  there,  while  his  wife  in  the  next  room  cleared  away  the  breakfa;: 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


19 


dishes  and  his  boys  did  the  usual  winter-morning-  work  around  the 
barnyard,  figuring  out  painstakingly  and  slowly,  all  unsuspecting  of 
its  far-reaching  significance,  this  law  that  was  to  rouse  into  bitter 
factions  the  whole  couritry?  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  more 
glaring,  startlingly  plain  example  of  the  danger  of  sheer  ignorance.  Here 
is  a  man  innately  good  doing  all  but  irreparable  harm.  A  man  who 
stands  for  progress  in  farming  and  in  his  community  generally,  at¬ 
tempting  without  malice  to  stop  thought. 

“I  was  thinking,  ‘what’ll  I  do  on  my  birthday,’  ”  he  explained,  “and 
I  said  to  myself,  ‘well,  the  first  thing  I’ll  get  that  law  off  my  mind.’  ” 
As  simply  as  that  can  dynamite  be  ignited.' 

The  thought  overwhelmed  me  and  we  sat  silent  for  a  few  minutes. 
“How  did  the  vote  stand?”  I  asked  at  last. 

“Seventy-one  to  five  in  the  House,  without  a  debate.”  (Rumor 
fas  it  that  the  House  merely  wished  to  ‘pass  the  buck’  to  the  Senate. 
But  be  that  as  it  may,  this  is  Butler’s  story.) 

“And  how  in  the  Senate?” 

“Twenty-four  to  six.  Two  men,  Sims  and  Evans,  they  opposed  it 
md  the  Speaker  came  down  and  debated  on  the  floor  for  the  bill.  It 
massed  in  March  this  spring.  That  is,  in  1925.”  (Again,  says  report, 
he  Senate  merely  passed,  in  its  turn,  responsibility  on  to  the  Governor, 
eeling  sure  he  would  use  his  veto.  This  he  did  not  do  for  the  reason 

hat  he  had  senatorial  ambitions  of  his  own  with  which  he  was  afraid 

uch  an  action  might  interfere.) 

“One  thing,”  said  Mr.  Butler  rather  tartly,  “that  people  around 
;ere  are  saying  isn’t  true.  They  say  Mr.  Bryan’s  talk  made  me  think 
if  this.  Now  I  never  laid  eyes  on  him  until  I  saw  him  in  this  court 

oom.  I  made  up  my  own  mind  in  1922,  like  I  told  you.” 

“Perhaps,”  I  suggested,  “he  set  the  minister  you  spoke  of  to 
finking  and  perhaps  your  bill  wouldn’t  have  passed  if  many  of  the 
•enators  and  Representatives  hadn’t  heard  him  talk.” 

Butler  seemed  to  doubt  this.  “Down  here,”  he  stated  “everybody 
Uvays  has  been  for  a  law  like  that.  We  all  think  alike  about  it.  We 
an’t  see  why  it  isn’t  a  good  law.” 

“How  old  are  your  boys,  Mr.  Butler?”  I  asked. 

“Nineteen,  seventeen  and  fifteen.  I  got  four  grandchildren,  and 
;iy,”  he  expanded,  “those  boys  certainly  think  a  lot  of  music.  We  got 
le  nicest  little  band  up  in  our  county.” 

The  oldest,  it  seems,  plays  the  slide  trombone,  the  second  the 
:nor  horn  (whatever  that  may  be — I  know  little  of  brass  instru- 
lients),  the  youngest  beats  the  big  drum.  And  that  isn’t  all.  Mr. 
lutler’s  brother  plays  the  base  horn  and  his  little  son  the  cornet. 
You  ought  to  hear  them,”  enthused  Butler.  “The  little  fellow  can 
ay  it  too,  I  tell  you.  I  wouldn’t  have  been  ashamed  to  have  our  home 
ind  play  down  here  in  the  courthouse  yard  the  other  day.  Did  you 
far  the  band  concert?” 

I  admitted  that  I  hadn’t. 

1“We  have  great  times,”  he  smiled. 

Can  you  visualize  him — this  big,  warm-hearted,  capable  farmer, 
gh  in  his  church,  Representative  of  three  counties,  quite  truly  so 
icause  by  “raisin’  ”  he  reflects  naturally  the  opinions  of  the  com- 


20 


Clarence  Darrow’ s  Tivo  Great  Trials 


niunity  of  which  he  is  so  proud.  It  is  easy  enough  to  see  why  he  i:  r, 
well  liked.  Only  too  easy  to  see,  too,  why  his  opinions  are  what  the]  ei 

are-  „  .  .  "  k; 

“I  never  knew  until  yesterday  that  the  King  James  version  of  tin  [ 
Bible  wasn’t  the  only  Bible  there  was,”  he  confessed  honestly.  H<  lt, 
holds,  it  is  plain  to  see,  no  rancor.  My  own  impression  is  that,  unlikt 
Mr.  Bryan  and  Judge  Raulston,  whose  minds  are  triple-locked  witl  | 
bigotry,  prejudice  and  self-glory,  Mr.  Butler  and  many  of  his  fellov  _ 
Tennesseeans  have  been  proudly  interested  as  well  as  informed  and  se  ^ 
quietly  thinking  by  the  campaign  of  education  carried  on  at  Daytoi  k 
by  Darrow,  Hays,  Malone  and  Neal.  Tennessee  is  unbelievably  unin 
formed ;  her  leaders  who  are  informed  have  been,  as  Joseph  Woo<  Jj' 
Krutch  so  ably  pointed  out  in  the  Nation,  unbelievably  cowardly.  I  ^ 
is  the  Bible  belt  and  the  majority  of  the  people  in  it  are  both  by  tempera  J 
rnent  and  by  long  habit  deeply  religious.  But,  however  much  thi  | 
trial  has  made  us  feel  as  if  we  were  living  in  the  sixteenth  century  j. 
this  is,  after  all,  the  twentieth.  And  if  the  farmer,  the  miner,  and  tb 
man  on  the  street  in  Tennessee  is,  secretly  still,  of  course,  beginning 
to  be  only  a  little  curious  and  is  as  yet  scarcely  willing  to  learn,  th  A 
boys  and  girls  are  of  the  very  spirit  of  this  century  and  need  onl; 
half  a  chance.  For  that  chance  Darrow,  ever  the  defender  and  pro 
lector  of  youth,  continues  the  fight. 

*  *  *  t-  *  ® 

Although  on  Friday  afternoon  following  Raulston’s  ruling  that  th  ' 
expert  testimony  was  not  admissible  Mencken  had  left  declaring  every  , 
thing  was  over  except  the  “bumping  off”  of  Scopes,  those  of  us  wb  :f!i 
remained  were  to  experience  more  thrills  on  Monday  than  on  an;  j 
other  day  of  the  trial.  In  positively  breath-taking  fashion  there  for* 
lowed  one  after  the  other  (1)  the  Judge’s  citing  of  Darrow  for  con  c 
tempt  of  court;  (2)  the  reading,  in  condensed  form,  of  the  exper  . 
testimony;  (3)  Darrow’s  apology,  which  was  accepted  after  a  Ion: 111  - 
fundamentalist  sermon  by  Judge  Raulston;  (4)  the  moving  of  the  entir 
court  out  doors;  (5)  the  taking  down,  amid  loud  and  exciting  protest' 
of  the  “Read  Your  Bible,”,  sign  from  the  courthouse  wall;  (6)  Dar 
row’s  cross-examination  of  Bryan — a  most  dramatic  event.  * 

*  *  *  *  * 


To  begin  with,  the  court  room  was  crowded  as  on  no  other  morn  . 
ing.  It  was  almost  literally  impossible  to  get  through  the  jam  on  th  • 
stairs.  In  the  hallway  I  found  the  policeman  firmly  blocking  the  dooi  a 
his  usually  smiling  face  quite  taciturn.  I  ducked  under  his  arm  an 
through  the  packed  aisle  saw  E.  H.-J.  valiantly  holding  my  seat.  “What’ 
all  the  excitement?”  I  demanded.  “Why  is  everybody  so  nervous? 


At  that  moment  the  Judge  stalked  into  the  court  room.  There  wa 
no  smile  on  his  face  either.  On  the  contrary,  his  expression  was  grit 
and  determined. 

“He  looks  mad,”  declared  E.  H.-J.  “The  rumor  is  that  he  is  goin 
to  cite  Darrow  for  contempt.”  One  could  positively  feel  the  tensio 
tighten.  Suddenly  there  was  a  sputter  and  smoke  rose  from  one  c 
the  electric  wires.  “Shut  off  that  switch  outside,”  shouted  someon 
Panic  hovered  in  the  air.  The  thought  of  what  might  happen  if  th; 
throng  tried  to  get  through  the  one  door  made  my  tongue  feel  dry. 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


21 


The  short  circuit  was  soon  remedied,  however,  but  the  human  cur¬ 
rents  continued.  The  rap  that  brought  the  court  to  order  had  a  per¬ 
emptory  sound  and  after  a  mild  prayer  by  an  oldish  clergyman,  the 
bailiff,  to  his  usual  chant  of  “Oh  yes,  oh  yes,  oh  yes,  this  Honorable 
Circuit  Court  is  now  open  pursuant  to  adjournment,”  and  his  equally 
usual  “Set  down,”  now  added  in  a  surly  tone,  “This  ain’t  no  circus.” 

Immediately  the  Judge  began  to  read  in  a  singsong  voice  his 
lengthy  reasons  for  citing  Darrow,  the  first  of  them  being  that  in  his 
— the  Judge’s — person,  a  great  and  noble  state  had  been  insulted. 
Slowly  he  intoned  the  whole  conversation  that  had  occurred  the  pre- 
:eding  Friday  between  himself  and  Darrow.  The  latter,  he  announced, 
\vas  to  appear  before  the  court  on  Tuesday  morning  and  meanwhile 
his  bail  was  fixed  at  $5,000.  Some  expressed  their  opinion  of  this 
absurd  amount  in  a  low,  derisive  ripple  of  laughter,  but  returned 
Quickly  to  a  grim  silence.  Grim  was  the  Judge  too,  and  grim  was 
Darrow.  For  perhaps  the  first  time  the  entire  atmosphere  became 
lostile;  the  bar  enclosure  had  become  two  battle  camps  when  Hays 
•ose  to  read  the  statements  of  Bible  and  Science  experts.  Stewart  was 
it  once  on  his  feet.  “Is  this  court,”  he  demanded,  “to  be  turned  into 
i  Chautauqua,  a  Summer  normal  course?”  Hays  insisted  that  he  might 
persuade  the  court  to  reverse  his  opinion.  “I  will  sit  here,”  Raulston 
innounced  naively  enough,  “and,  of  course,  I  will  hear  what’s  read 
md,  of  course,  I  never  hesitate  to  reverse  myself.  But  I  have  already 
uled  on  this  matter.” 

’  The  battle  was  hot.  Having  just  cited  Darrow,  and  Hays’  reasons 
ieing  so  clearly  put  and  so  obviously  incontrovertible,  Judge  Raulston 
or  once  ruled  in  favor  of  the  Defense ;  also  it  was  quite  evident  that 
he  deciding  straw  was  the  fact  that,  rather  than  plow  painfully  through 
he  statements,  he  preferred  to  hear  them  succinctly  summarized. 

“I  am  inclined  to  hear  them,”  he  announced  finally,  and,  turning 
D  Hays,  added  “I  will  give  you  one  hour.” 

Hays,  beginning  to  read  rapidly  and  distinctly,  attempted  to  restore 
Dine  sort  of  good  humor.  Interrupted  by  Stewart,  he  asked  (with  his 
eally  charming  smile)  “Can  I  have  time  out?”  This  brought  a  sym- 
athetic  laugh  from  the  entire  court  room  and  the  Judge,  relaxing  a 
'if le,  said,  with  a  flicker  of  a  smile  himself,  that  he  could. 

Hays  read  on  and  on  and  on  until  noon.  The  people,  including 
Sutler  and  many  from  Dayton  and  its  environs,  listened,  eager,  intent, 
rinking  in  every  word  of  the  brilliant,  clear  explanations  of  such 
len  as  Metcalf  of  Johns  Hopkins,  Newman  of  the  University  of 
hicago. 

*  *  *  *  * 

Exciting  as  the  morning  session  had  been,  however,  the  one  in 
lie  afternoon  was  to  be  more  so.  Even  as  we  came  out  of  the  court 
>om  at  twelve  o’clock  'people  who  had  been  unable  to  get  standing 
>om  in  the  forenoon  had  eaten  early  lunches  and  were  now  pushing 
f:eir  way  to  seats.  Others,  seeing  this,  decided  to  go  dinnerless  and 
[■omptly  turned  back  to  join  those  who,  foreseeing,  had  come  supplied 
ith  sandwiches  and  thermos  bottles.  I  found  the  hotel  packed  as 
:ver  before,  and  although  I  went  back  directly  to  hold  our  seats,  the 


22 


Clarence  Dar row’s  Two  Great  Trials 


court  house  was  already  jammed.  There  must  have  been  well  over 
1,000  people  in  the  room.  This  time  the  Judge  was  convincing  in  his 
exhortations.  “The  floor  may  give  way,”  he  insisted.  “The  plaster 
is  cracking  downstairs.  This  floor  was  never  intended  to  hold  so  many 
people.  I  told  you  that  yesterday.  When  we  begin  to  argue  we  will 
go  out  on  the  lawn.  You  better  get  your  seats  now.”  This  warning 
was  well  timed.  The  crowd,  that  had  been  waiting  so  patiently  for 
over  an  hour,  arose,  and,  annoyed  and  petulant,  joined  the  jubilant  in¬ 
coming  one ;  together  they  began  surging  and  pushing  out  of  the  door, 


r 

i; 

o 

f 

it 

i; 

4 

I1 


*  *  *  * 


* 


ii; 


Darrow  arose  and  made  an  apology,  simple,  complete  and  con¬ 
vincing.  The  moment  was  obviously  not  one  in  which  to  cloud  the 
issue  and  no  one  realized  this  better  than  Darrow,  ever  the  wise  anc 
cautious  general.  Moreover,  his  flash  of  biting  truth  and  his  sarcasm 
unpremeditated  as  they  had  been,  had  neatly  served  their  purpose 
Now,  with  a  master  hand,  he  cleared  the  deck  of  trifles  as  he  prepared 
for  the  victory  that  was  to  be  his,  literally  within  the  hour.  The  crowc 
'went  out  to  him. 

Majestic  was  his  apology ;  amusing  was  the  Judge’s  answer.  Hen 
was  a  man  who  had  been  rude  and  was  admitting  it  in  plain  language 
To  him  His  Honor  replied  with  a  long  and  touching  sermon  on  th< 
beauty  of  forgiveness.  Those  of  us  who  stayed  to  listen  lost  all  hopf 
of  a  decent  seat  out  of  doors,  but  we  counted  the  ten  minutes  of  his 
harangue  quite  worth  the  ensuing  discomfort. 


ts 

ii 

to 

ill 


ii! 

Ill 

ii!'' 

V. 

it 


^ 


On  the  lawn  people  gathered  until  over  5,000,  sitting  on  planks  oi 
standing,  surrounded  the  high  platform  enclosure  in  which  Judge,  De 
fense,  Prosecution,  and  a  few  privileged  people  hastily  adjusted  them-  ^ 
selves,  as  did  the  newspaper  men  just  below  them  on  improvisec 
benches.  In  the  shuffle  I  lost  E.  H.-J.  completely  and  found  myself  iij  y 
the  very  center  of  a  block  of  native  Tennesseeans,  men  and  women  y 
They  waited  with  obvious  impatience  while  Mr.  Hays  finished  reading 
the  last  of  the  expert  testimony,  but  perked  up  cheerily  when  the  cour1 
said,  “Send  for  the  jury.”  With  irritation  they  listened  to  the  meticu 
lous  Mr.  Hays,  ever  concerned  for  his  record,  asking  if  he  might  havi  li¬ 
the  consent  of  the  other  side  to  fix  it  later  and  to  see  that  the  state 
ments  of  the  experts  were  properly  marked  and  introduced.  But  then 
was  a  shocked  hush  when  Darrow  asked  that,  lest  it  prejudice  tb 
jury,  the  “Read  Your  Bible”  sign  be  removed  from  the  wall  of  tb 
courthouse.  Followed  a  veritable  melee  of  words  between  the  lawyer 
of  Defense  and  Prosecution. 

“I  have  never,”  flamed  one  member  of  the  latter,  “seen  the  tim* 
in  the  history  of  this  country  when  any  man  should  be  afraid  to  b 
reminded  of  the  fact  that  he  should  read  his  Bible,  and  if  the  Defens 
represents  a  force  that  is  aligned  with  the  Devil  and  his  satellites — ” 

To  which  Mr.  Malone,  with  flashing  eyes,  stormed:  “Your  Plonoi 
I  object  to  that  kind  of  language.”  Adding,  with  the  eloquence  thaj 
invariably  brought  him  the  admiration  of  all  his  audiences,  “It  is  a! 
right  for  the  individual  members  of  the  prosecution  to  make  up  theil 


'  ; 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


23 


minds  as  to  what  forces  we  represent.  I  have  a  right  to  assume  I 
have  as  much  chance  of  heaven  as  they  have,  and  my  understanding 
of  the  Bible  and  of  Christianity  is  just  as  good  and  I  will  be  a  pretty 
poor  Christian  when  I  get  any  Biblical  or  Christian  views  from  any 
member  of  the  Prosecution  whom  I  have  yet  heard  from  during  this 
trial.” 

This  statement  was  greeted  with  a  storm  of  applause  that  caused 
the  Bailiff,  cheerily  chewing  gum  the  while,  to  rap  and  shout,  “Keep 
quiet  down  there,  I  tell  you.” 

Arose  Mr.  Bryan,  in  manner  suave,  persuasive,  judicial.  “If,”  he 
stated,  “the  Defense’s  arguments  are  sound  and  sincere,  that  the  Bible 
can  be  construed  so  as  to  recognize  evolution,  I  cannot  see  why  ‘Read 
Your  Bible’  would  necessarily  mean  partiality  toward  our  side.  It  seems 
to  me  that  both  of  us  would  want  to  read  the  Bible  if  both  of  us 
find  in  it  the  basis  of  our  belief.  I  am  going  to  quote  the  Bible  in 
defense  of  our  position,  and  I  am  going  to  hold  the  Bible  as  safe, 
though  they  try  to  discard  it  from  our  walls.  Paul  said:  ‘If  eating 
meat  maketh  my  brother  to  offend,  I  shall  eat  no  meat  while  the  world 
lasts.’  I  would  not  go  that  far,  that  is,  I  would  not  say  while  the 
world  lasts,  but  if  leaving  that  up  there  during  the  trial  makes  our 
brother  to  offend,  I  would  take  it  down  during  the  trial.” 

Whereupon,  his  idol,  Mr.  Bryan,  having  spoken,  all  further  parley 
was  lost  on  Judge  Raulstords  ears.  “I  will  let  the  sign  come  down,” 
le  announced.  “Let  the  jury  be  brought  around.” 

The  sign  was  thereupon  removed,  but  the  jury  was  not  destined 
o  appear  on  that  day. 

Instead,  Darrow  put  Bryan  on  the  stand  as  a  witness.  In  view 
)f  the  trouncing  he  was  to  receive,  there  was  something  pathetically 
lumorous  in  Bryan’s  easy,  almost  gleeful  acquiescence  to  the  request, 
vven  so  has  many  an  unsuspecting  child  climbed  into  the  dentist’s 
hair  to  descend  from  it  later  sadder  and  wiser.  Not  that  Bryan  realized 
ully  at  the  time,  even  as  Darrow’s  questioning  progressed  quite  what 
vas  being  done  to  him.  The  frequent  and  enthusiastic  applause — not 
o  mention  fervent  amens — from  the  Tennessee  portion  of  the  audience 
icted  as  an  anesthetic.  Perhaps  to  a  cynical  eye  one  of  the  most  de- 
iciously  amusing  spectacles  of  the  whole  Dayton  drama  was  the  de- 
ighted,  purring  expression  of  the  Judge  as  he  watched  the  duel  which, 
a  his  abysmal  ignorance,  he,  like  the  other  Bryanites,  believed  their 
ero  was  winning. 

A  duel  the  meeting  of  those  two  men  was.  Darrow,  the  apostle 
f  knowledge  and  tolerance,  and  Bryan,  the  arch  advocate  of  ignorance 
nd  bigotry,  had  engaged  at  last  in  single-handed  combat.  This  was 
diat  the  crowd  had  been  hoping  for ;  for  this  it  had  patiently  waited 
trough  long  sweltering  hours  of  technical  discussions.  Now  it  gave 
>  long  sigh  of  delighted  expectation.  It  was  satisfied.  And  no  won- 
er!  Few  who  witnessed  that  dramatic  moment  in  the  history  of  this 
ountry’s  thought  ever  will  forget  it.  Even  the  physical  aspects  of 
le  scene  carved  themselves  on  one’s  memory. 

Picture  to  yourself  that  vast  throng.  Imagine  yourself  to  be  a 


24 


Clarence  Darrow' s  Two  Great  Trials 


part  of  it.  Before  you  the  branches  of  two  great  maples,  intertwining, 
form  a  natural  proscenium  arch,  and  behind  it,  in  the  ring,  the  two  an-  1D 
tagonists  meet — Bryan,  assured,  pompous,  his  face  half  turned  to  the  01 
audience  which,  rather  than  the  Judge,  he  frankly  addresses,  and  Dar-  j08 
row,  standing  a  few  feet  away,  his  eyes  on  his  opponent,  his  mind  con¬ 
centrated  on  the  task  before  him,  vigilant,  relentless. 

So  easily  he  began !  Almost  as  if  he  were  questioning  a  child.  Pu 
And  then  after  Bryan  had  modestly  admitted  that  he  had  made  a 
study  of  the  Bible,  Darrow  showed  that  his  ignorance  of  it  and  of  re-  In 
ligion  was  almost  as  profound  as  his  ignorance  of  general  history  and  ta 
of  science.  Gradually  Bryan’s  good  humor  changed  to  a  strained  in-  sii 
dignation.  Bright  red  spots  came  out  on  his  cheeks.  At  last  he  be-  v 
came  utterly  rattled.  He  understood  thoroughly  that  the  purpose  of  Ik 
Harrow’s  questions  was  to  show  that,  even  to  a  man  who  accepted  at 
the  Bible  as  literally  as  Bryan  professed  to  do,  there  were  many  pas¬ 
sages  subject  to  contradiction  and  to  wide  interpretation.  Yet,  after 
he  had  stood  pat  on  the  Jonah  story,  even  staunchly  declaring  that  it 
would  have  been  quite  as  easy  for  God,  had  he  so  wished,  to  have  made 
Jonah  swallow  the  whale;  after  he  had  stood  pat  on  the  Joshua  story 
and  declared  that  he  did  indeed  believe  the  sun  stood  still  at  Joshua’s 
command ;  after  he  had  stood  pat  on  the  Garden  of  Eden  story,  and 
admitted  the  conviction  that  Eve’s  sin  there  was  the  cause  of  all 
women’s  pangs  at  child  birth ;  after  he  had  stood  pat  on  his  belief 
that  until  the  building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  all  humanity  spoke  one 
language ;  and  after  he  had  announced  his  conviction  that  every  living 
thing,  except  possibly  the  fishes,  had  been  wiped  out  at  the  time  of 
the  flood,  and  that  “whatever  human  beings,  including  all  the  tribes, 
that  inhabited  the  world,  and  have  inhabited  the  world,  and  who  run 
their  pedigree  straight  back,  and  all  the  animals,  have  come  onto  the 
earth  since  the  flood — that  is,  within  4,200  years” ;  after  he  had  point¬ 
edly  and  angrily  exclaimed  that  he  never  had  “felt  a  great  deal  of 
interest  in  the  effort  that  had  been  made  to  dispute  the  Bible  by  the 
speculations  of  men  or  the  investigations  of  men” — after  all  this  he 
suddenly  fell  down  on — what  do  you  think?  The  length  of  the  day. 
In  short,  he  was  not  sure  that  the  day  referred  to  in  the  Bible  was 
twenty-four  hours  long.  He  was  convinced — he  stuck  to  this  valiantly 
— that  the  sun  was  created  on  the  fourth  day;  that  for  three  days 
there  was  morning  and  evening  without  a  sun,  but  those  days — Darrow 
finally  wrung  from  him — might  have  been  periods.  Even  the  obtuse 
Judge  realized  that  Bryan  himself  had  punctured  his  own  case.  And 
although,  like  Bryan,  his  Honor  had  resisted  blandly  all  Stewart’s  fre¬ 
quent  efforts  to  put  a  stop  to  the  examination  and  so  save  the  old 
gentleman — for  toward  the  end  Bryan  did  indeed  seem  both  old  and 
shaken — Tudge  Raulston  now  sharply  brought  down  his  gavel  “Court,” 
be  announced  sternly,  “is  dismissed  until  nine-thirty  tomorrow  morning.” 

*  *  *  *  * 

When  the  morning  came  he  did  his  best  to  undo  the  mischief. 
Both  he  and  Bryan  had  been  reading  the  papers — as  had  Darrow,  too. 

I  wish  you  could  have  seen  that  glorious  old  warrior  as,  after  the 
testimony,  he  sat  tranquilly  on  the  porch  of  the  Mansion.  He  looked, 


Marcet  Haldcman- Julius  25 


to  use  a  familiar  but  ever  expressive  simile,  like  the  full  and  contented 
cat  that  had  just  eaten  the  canary!  But  to  return  to  Raulston — his 
own  errors, — he  explained  in  good  plain  English,  were  of  the  head 
not  of  the  heart.  “Yesterday,”  he  continued,  “I  made  a  very  grave 
mistake.”  Thereupon  he  ruled  that  Bryan’s  entire  testimony  be  ex¬ 
punged  from  the  record. 

Promptly  and  serenly  came  Darrow’s  final  and  masterly  stroke. 
In  effect,  he  said  that  there  was  no  doubt  at  all  but  that  Scopes  had 
taught  that  man  had  descended  from  a  lower  order  of  animals ;  that 
since  he  had  not  been  permitted  to  prove  that  this  did  not  conflict 
with  the  story  of  creation  as  taught  in  Genesis,  there  was  nothing  to 
be  gained  by  argument.  He  therefore  asked  that  the  jury  be  immedi¬ 
ately  brought  in  and  charged  by  the  Judge. 

Stewart,  genuinely  tired  of  the  whole  business,  heartily  disgusted 
with  the  performance  of  the  day  before,  agreed  promptly.  The  rest 
was  a  matter  of  less  than  forty-five  minutes. 

jfc  jjs  sfc 

The  jury  actually  was  summoned — for  the  first  time  since  the 
second  day  of  the  trial.  To  them  Darrow  advanced  and,  arms  folded, 
explained  the  status  of  the  case.  Frankly  he  said  that  the  only  hope 
to  get  a  decision  on  the  constitutionality  of  the  law  was  to  take  it  to 
a  higher  court.  This,  he  pointed  out,  could  not  be  done  with  a  hung 
jury.  It  was  essential  that  they  should  agree  on  their  verdict.  In 
nine  minutes  the  twelve  men  had  returned  with  it :  “Guilty.”  Under 
the  circumstances  it  was  satisfactory  to  both  the  Defense  and  Prose¬ 
cution. 

Scopes,  asked  if  he  had  anything  to  say,  arose,  stood  before  the 
Judge,  made  his  first  official  utterance.  The  law,  he  stated,  was,  in  his 
opinion,  unjust.  Briefly  he  gave  his  reasons.  Therefore,  he  announced, 
he  would  continue  to  break  it.  Short  though  his  appearance  was,  he 
made  a  pleasant  impression. 

The  Judge  fixed  his  fine  at  $100  and  his  bail  (to  appear  before 
him  in  court  on  the  first  of  December)  at  $500.  Mr  Malone  stated  that 
The  Baltimore  Sun  had  wired  its  wish  to  act  as  bondsman  and  added 
that  its  offer  had  been  accepted.  The  first  round  of  the  case  of  the 
State  of  Tennessee  vs.  John  Thomas  Scopes  was  over,  with  Darrow, 
apparently  defeated,  really  the  Victor. 

Typically,  Malone  arose  to  thank  the  people  of  the  “great  State  of 
Tennessee”  for  the  opportunity  to  test  out  this  great  issue.  His  speech, 
gallantly  phrased,  was  greeted  with  delighted  approval.  Even  as  I  left 
the  court  room  I  heard  the  indefatigable,  tireless  Mr.  Hays  say  pleasantly 
to  the  once  more  smiling  Judge,  “Your  Honor,  I  should  like,  for  purposes 
of  the  record — ” 

*  sj:  *  *  * 

[Since  I  have  sent  the  above  impressions  to  Girard,  Bryan  has  died. 
His  death  adds  an  authentic  note  of  tragedy  to  the  great  drama  en¬ 
acted  at  Dayton.] 


26 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


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Henry  Sweet, 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius-  27 


THE  DEFENDANTS  IN  THE  SWEET  MURDER  CASE 
By  Marcet  Haldeman-Julius 

HMET  the  Sweets  in  their  own  home.  It  was  a  bright  Sunday 
afternoon — the  eleventh  of  April — when  with  Alice,  my  eight- 
year-old  daughter,  I  arrived  at  the  apartment  house  in  which 
they  now  live.  The  Detroit  street,  in  a  foreign  and  colored 
neighborhood,  was  none  too  prepossessing,  and  had  a  general  appear¬ 
ance  of  being  rather  down  at  the  heel,  although  this  particular  apartment 
house  evidently  had  been  quite  recently  built.  It  was  spruce  enough, 
and  obviously  occupied  by  people  superior  to  those  in  the  surrounding 
dilapidated  old  residences.  Inside  I  found  the  cramped  halls  clean  with 
freshly  painted  yellow*  walls,  and  as  I  climbed  two  flights  of  stairs  I 
noticed  that  these  were  carpeted  with  well-swept  rubber  runners.  On 
the  third  floor,  a  door  stood  open.  In  it,  waiting  to  greet  me,  was  a 
young  colored  man  in  his  early  twenties.  It  was  Henry  Sweet,  the 
brother  of  Dr.  Ossian  LL  Sweet. 

I  liked  Henry  at  once.  He  is,  in  fact,  an  exceptional  youth.  Just 
twenty-two,  about  five  feet  seven  in  height,  well  built,  brown  in  color 
(with  typical  Negro  hair  and  a  small  mustache),  African  in  cast  of 
features,  Henry  is  a  student  at  Wilber  force  College — a  co-educational 
college  for  Negroes  in  Wilber  force,  Ohio.  He  was  just  ready  to  enter 
his  senior  year  when  all  this  trouble  started.  Thanks  to  it,  he  has  been 
obliged  to  stay  out  of  college.  During  eighty-four  days,  last  fall,  he 
was  in  jail,  and  after  the  jury  disagreed  and  (in  November)  he  was 
admitted  to  bail  under  a  ten  thousand  dollar  bond,  money  was  too  scarce 
to  justify  his  return  to  school,  so  late  in  the  year,  especially  as  the  date 
of  the  next  trial  was  uncertain.  (Ever  since  the  tenth  of  March  it  has 
been  impending.)  If  Darrow  is  successful  in  his  courageous  and  bril¬ 
liant  fight  for  justice  and  Henry  is  acquitted  of  the  charge  against  him 
— the  murder  of  Leon  Breiner — he  plans,  once  again  he  is  free  to  shape 
his  own  life,  to  take  his  B.  A.  degree  from  Wilberforce,  and  then  go 
either  to  Harvard  or  Columbia  for  his  law  course. 

Henry  is  a  gentle  soul,  kindly  and  courteous,  full  of  the  bright, 
high  hopes  of  youth,  and  miraculously  unembittered  by  the  cruel  ordeal 
through  which  he  has  been  and  is  being  put.  His  manner,  considered 
from  any  point  of  view,  is  unimpeachable.  Neither  shy,  nor  aggres¬ 
sive,  neither  servile  nor  arrogant,  he  has  the  quiet  poise  of  a  youth,  who, 
through  great  hardships,  already  has  reached  and  passed  several  mile¬ 
stones  along  the  steep  upward  road  he  has  set  himself  to  travel.  Can¬ 
didly,  I  got  an  impression  of  sterling  character  rather  than  of  an  un¬ 
usual  mind.  He  seemed  to  me  neither  much  better  nor  less  well  informed 
than  the  average  run  of  college  boys  I  meet.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he 
will  make  a  solid  dependable  lawyer,  for  he  is  the  sort  to  do  thoroughly 
and  conscientiously  whatever  he  undertakes.  One  instinctively  has  con¬ 
fidence  in  him.  But  he  is  not  an  intellectual  person.  Just  a  nice, 


28  Clarence  Dar  row’s  Two  Great  Trials 


sensible,  wide  awake,  ambitious  but  decidedly  modest  and  unassuming  "" 
youth — that  is  Henry  Sweet.  He  was  born  in  Florida  and  until  threi  • 
years  ago,  when  he  came  north  to  Wilberforce,  spent  his  entire  life  ii 
thaj:  State.  His  whole  background,  like  his  accent  and  inflection,  i:  u 
Southern.  I  want  you  to  see  him  very  clearly  because  he  is  the  storn  ia" 
center  of  the  prosecution’s  attack.  ® 

After  ushering  us  pleasantly  into  the  tiny  sitting  room,  he  callec  ® 
his  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Sweet.  Gladys  Sweet  is  a  striking  woman.  D( 
you  remember  the  fairy  tale  in  which  a  noble  prince  opens  an  orange' 
out  of  which  flies  a  golden  bird?  Sipping  from  a  crystal  stream,  th« 
golden  bird  changes  into  a  golden  princess.  Gladys  might  have  -beet  ll( 
that  princess.  Her  lovely  skin,  petal-like  in  texture,  has  much  less  yel  10 
low  in  it  than  the  softest  shade  of  fawn.  Creamy  tan,  in  tone  it  is  mid 
way  between  Houbigant’s  fragrant  brunette  powder  and  a  light  grain  o  ,0 
wheat.  When  she  becomes  interested  she  flushes  a  delicate  pink.  Lonj  111 
thick  lashes  fringe  her  warm  brown  eyes  which  reflect  swiftly  her  every  1 
mood.  Sometimes  there'ls  a  hint  of  dimples  in  her  cheeks.  Her  won  ■= 
derful  dark  hair  seems  at  first  glance  to  be  jet  black,  but  in  the  sunligh  11 
it  is  full  of  auburn  glints.  (When  loosened,  it  hangs  well  below  her  i 
waist.)  Ordinarily  she  wears  it  Spanish  fashion,  parted  in  the  middle  ® 
and  coiled  loosely  at  the  back  of  her  neck.  It  lies  like  cloth  of  velvei  Sl 
against  her  smooth  face.  Gladys  is  not  beautiful — there  are  minor  de¬ 
fects  which  forbid  that  supreme  description.  But  she  is  most  unusual 
and  interesting  looking.  Add  to  this  that  she  is  slender,  graceful,  finely 
wrought,  sensitive,  aloof — and  you  will  understand  why  artists  ofteri 
ask  to  paint  her.  As  graciously  but  none  too  enthusiastically  she  gave 
me  her  slim  hand  I  realized  that  here  was  a  woman  who,  for  all  hei 
appealing  youth  (she  is  just  twenty-four)  and  her  soft  femininity,  hac 
been  so  chilled  by  the  affronts  life  had  offered  her  that  she  had  quietly 
and  proudly  withdrawn  into  herself. 

To  understand  Gladys  Sweet,  nee  Mitchell,  you  must  understand1 
her  background.  It  is  the  antithesis  of  that  of  Dr.  Sweet  and  his; 
brothers  (Henry  and  Dr.  Otis  Sweet,  a  successful  dentist  in  Detroit), 
The  South  and  the  soil  of  the  South  are  in  the  veins  of  the 
Sweets.  As  a  boy,  Dr.  Ossian  Sweet  plowed  many  a  furrow  behind: 
scraggly  mules,  but  Gladys’  whole  life  has  been  spent  in  the  North  and 
in  cities.  Born  in  Pittsburgh,  Pennsylvania,  she  was  seven  when  hei 
father  brought  his  family  (which  consisted  of  only  Gladys  and  hei 
mother),  to  Detroit.  There,  in  a  well-paid  orchestra,  he  earned  a  good 
livelihood.  Also  he  gave  piano  lessons.  The  Mitchells  were  always 
in  comfortable  circumstances.  They  owned  a  car  and  a  pleasant  home, 
They  respected  themselves  and  were  respected  by  their  neighbors,  all 
of  whom,  as  it  happened,  were  white.  (Some  of  them  testified  most 
valiantly  in  Gladys’  behalf  at  the  first  trial.)  Not  only  were  the 
Mitchells  the  only  colored  people  in  the  block,  but  for  a  good  many 
vears  Gladys  was  the  only  colored  child  in  her  grade.  When  she  fin¬ 
ished  high  school  in  Detroit  she  went  to  the  Teachers’  College  in  that 
city  and  graduated  from  it.  Shortly  afterward  she  met  Dr.  Sweet,  and 
in  about  a  year  (1922)  married  him.  In  less  than  another  year  they 
went  to  France. 

On  the  French  liner,  they  were  of  course  treated  courteously. 

1 


i  Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


29 


e,  Their  stateroom  was  between  those  occupied  by  white  people.  In 
i,  Paris,  Dr.  Sweet,  whose  specialty  is  gynecology,  worked  under  Madame 
ji  Curie.  (He  is,  as  are  so  many  young  doctors  of  the  day,  particularly 
„  interested  in  the  effect  of  radium  on  chronic  diseases,  especially  on 
cancer.)  Later  he  went  to  Vienna,  where  he  attended  the  Eiselburg 
K  Clinic.  The  civilized  attitude  of  the  French  toward  Negroes  is  too  well 
)( known  to  make  it  necessary  for  me  to  elaborate  upon  it.  Even  so, 
f  perhaps,  Gladys  might  have  encountered  petty  insults  from  fellow 
ii  countrymen  sojourning  abroad,  but  Dr.  Sweet,  who  is  considerably 
older  (in  his  thirties  I  should  judge),  was  always  there  as  a  buffer 
to  protect  her  and  make  life  easy  and  happy  for  her.  It  was  only 
when  her  baby  was  to  be  born  and  she  was  rudely  refused  admittance 
to  the  American  Hospital — to  which  Dr.  Sweet,  ironically  enough,  had 
contributed — that  she  was  made  smartingly  aware  of  the  fact  that  she 
was  not  white.  French  friends,  fortunately,  were  not  so  prejudiced. 
In  spite  of  this  one  unhappy  incident,  those  days  abroad  were  happy 
ones  for  Gladys,  and  the  trip  home  (again  on  a  French  liner)  was  wholly 
pleasant.  Moreover,  Gladys’  whole  outlook  on  life  was  broadened  and 
modified.  Naturally  drawn  toward  all  that  is  finest,  quick  to  as¬ 
similate  the  best,  full  of  temperament  and  artistic  feeling,  she  began 
to  develop  real  charm. 

Arrived  in  Detroit,  the  Sweets  went  directly  to  Gladys’  parents, 
with  whom  they  spent  a  happy  winter.  In  the  spring,  they  decided 
very  naturally  that  they  would  buy  a  home  of  their  own. 

Now  Gladys  tells* me — and  I  absolutely  believe  her — that  when  she 
went  house  hunting,  she  had  in  mind  only  two  things — first  to  find 
a  house  that  was  in  itself  desirable,  and  by  that  I  mean  an  attractive 
one  that  would  meet  the  needs  of  their  household,  and  second,  to  find 
a  house  that  would  be  within  their  pocketbook.  She  wanted  (what 
woman  doesn’t?)  a  pretty  home,  and  it  made  no  difference  to  her 
whether  it  was  in  colored  neighborhood  or  in  a  white  neighborhood. 
Had  she  found  this  same  little  brick  house — bungalow  she  calls  it — 
in  a  colored  neighborhood,  she  would  have  been  just  as  pleased  with  it 
and  just  as  eager  to  buy  it.  Again  let  me  remind  you  that  for  seven 
'years  her  family  had  been  the  only  colored  one  in  their  block. 

“But  could  you  have  found  such  a  house  in  a  colored  neighbor¬ 
hood?”  I 'asked. 

“No,”  she  answered,  “that’s  just  it — I  couldn’t.” 

Let  me  assure  you  that  the  neighborhood — not  even  a  middle- 
class  one — in  which  they  did  buy  isn’t  one  over  which  to  become  en¬ 
thusiastic.  The  Sweets’  house  on  the  corner  is  the  only  really  attrac¬ 
tive  one  in  it.  Next  to  it  on  the  left  is  a  frame  cottage  owned  by  a 
'  piano-tuner.  Across  from  them  is  a  whole  row  of  two-flat  houses. 

;  Most  of  the  people  in  them  have  Polish,  Swedish  and  German  sound¬ 
ing  names,  although  many  of  them,  I  understand,  have  been  born  in 
this  country  and  some  of  the  others  have  become  naturalized  citizens. 
Directly  across  (Garland  Avenue)  from  the  Sweets  is  a  grocery  store. 
Diagonally  across  is  a  public  school.  Opposite  them  on  Charlevoix 
is  an  apartment  house. 

“An  apartment  house !”  I  can  fairly  hear  you  exclaim. 


30 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


Yes,  just  so,  and  as  you  can  imagine,  the  people  in  it,  who  owned  k 
no  property,  were  among  those  to  proclaim  most  loudly  that  the  Sweets’  j 
presence  would  depreciate  property.  They  did,  in  fact — the  renters 
and  apartment  house  occupants — much  to  fan  the  flame.  But  while  | ' 
they  talked  and  the  storm  brewed,  Gladys  thought  only  of  where  rugs  j 
and  pictures  should  go,  what  furniture  would  be  needed,  and  of  the  “ 
gay  little  flower  garden  in  her  pretty  backyard. 

“Wasn’t  your  new  home  rather  far  from  your  husband’s  work?’’ 

I  asked. 

“Why  should  he  be  dose  to  his  work?”  she  returned.  “He  doesn’t  ; 
have  his  office  at  home  and  he  makes  calls  all  over  the  city.  We  were  ? 
looking  for  something  comfortable.  Above  all,  I  wanted  a  place  where 
the  baby  could  be  out  doors  and  have  plenty  of  good  fresh  air.” 

“Of  course,”  I  commented  mildly,  “if  I  were  to  buy  into  a  neigh-  , 
borhood,  one  of  the  very  first  things  that  would  interest  me  would  be 
the  kind  of  people  in  it.  I  should  want  to  feel  pretty  sure  that  my  ■ 
neighbors  would  be  congenial.” 

“I  took  it  for  granted,”  explained  Gladys,  “that  whoever  they  were 
I  should  have  practically  nothing  to  do  with  them.”  t 

She  has,  you  see,  a  point  of  view  not  uncommon  among  city  bred  j 
people.  Moreover,  Gladys  is  not  a  sociable  sort  of  person.  An  intro-  , 
vert  to  begin  with,  she  has  not  found  many  congenial  friends  in  her  4 
own  race  and  is  not  the  sort  to  make  advances  toward  people  who  feel 
themselves  superior.  She  is  indeed  a  lonely  soul,  who,  while  friendly  ‘ 
and  courteous  to  everyone  with  whom  she  has  any  dealings,  does  not  ' 
stoop  to  petty  alliances.  Capable  of  deep  feeling  and  deep  loyalties,  • 
devoted  to  her  husband,  baby  and  home,  but  by  no  means  wholly  ab¬ 
sorbed  by  them,  interested  in  literature  and  in  life,  she  has  not  yet  quite 
found  herself. 

Frankly,  I  have  come  to  know  Gladys  Sweet  very  well  indeed,  and 
the  more  I  see  of  her,  the  more  worth  while  I  find  her.  I  have  been 
out  there  to  dinner  twice.  We  have  been  to  see  George  Arliss  to¬ 
gether  (in  Galsworthy’s  very  appealingly  human  but  slight  play,  Old 
English.)  I  went  with  both  the  doctor  and  Gladys  to  hear  Roland 
Hayes,  and  I  was  Gladys’  guest  at  Eve  Le  Gallienne’s  production  of 
Ibsen’s  Master  Builder.  We  discussed  the  drama  from  all  angles  for 
at  least  a  solid  hour  afterward.  I  have  had  her  here  to  tea. with  me 
in  my  room  at  the  Book-Cadillac  (which  is  to  Detroit  what  the  Belle- 
vue-Stratford  is  to  Philadelphia,  the  New  Willard  to  Washington) 
Hers  is,  I  realize,  a  finely  tempered  and  courageous  spirit.  For  one' 
so  young,  still  so  decidedly  in  the  making,  she  has  not  a  little  real 
vision.  I  have  found  her  a  thoroughly  delightful  companion. 

That  first  evening,  as  dinner  time  approached  and  Dr.  Sweet  had 
not  yet  arrived,  she  asked  me  very  simply  and  cordially  if  I  would 
stay  for  dinner.  I  said  that  I  should  be  very  glad  to  do  so,  and  she 
invited  me  into  the  kitchen  so  that  we  could  chat  while  she  prepared 
the  meal.  By  this  time,  little  Iva,  a  curly-ringleted  brown  baby,  con¬ 
siderably  darker  than  her  mother,  had  waked  up.  She  is  just  at  that 
cunning  age,  not  quite  two,  when  she  can  produce  single  words  and 
make  very  short  sentences.  She  was  bewitched  with  Alice,  who  showed 
her  a  picture  book  and  borrowed  from  me  some  lovely  carved  amber 


Marcel  Haldeman- Julius 


31 


beads  over  which  Iva’s  little  fingers  closed  gently  and  delightedly. 
She  is  a  dear  wide-awake  little  girl,  and  Gladys,  who  is  a  very  capable 
young  mother,  keeps  her  so  daintily  fresh  that  it  is  a  pleasure  to  frolic 
with  her.  The  whole  household  worships  her  and  she  is  remarkably 
unspoiled.  I  felt  a  queer  clutch  at  my  heart  when  I  thought  of  all 
that  it  might  mean  to  her  and  to  her  mother  if  Darrow  were  not  suc¬ 
cessful  in  his  fight  for  justice. 

And  now  while  we  wait,  as  I  did,  for  Dr.  Sweet  himself  to  come, 
suppose  while  Gladys  with  Henry’s  genial  help  gets  the  appetizing  sup¬ 
per  and  Alice  entertains  the  baby — suppose  I  tell  you  the  story,  as  I 
got  it  from  the  Sweets,  of  what  happened  on  that  tragic  Wednesday 
night  of  last  September. 

It  was  on  Tuesday,  the  eighth  of  September,  1925,  that  the  Sweets 
moved  into  their  new  home.  Now  I  want  yon  to  realize  that  this 
house  (for  which  they  paid  eighteen  thousand  five  hundred  dollars) 
was  purchased  under  no  fake  pretenses.  Dr.  Sweet  himself,  who  is  a 
decidedly  dark  Negro,  made  all  the  negotiations.  Both  he  and  Gladys 
were  out  to  see  the  property  not  once,  but  several  times.  Dr.  Sweet 
sat  on  the  porch  and  many  of  the  neighbors  saw  him  there.  They 
knew  who  he  was  and  what  sort  of  a  Negro  he  was,  and  they  knew 
that  he  had  purchased  the  house  and  purchased  it  not  to  rent,  but  for 
a  home.  I  stress  this  point  because  I’ve  been  asked  so  frequently  if  the 
purchase  was  made  through  Gladys.  It  was  not.  The  Doctor  attended 
himself  to  the  whole  deal.  They  paid  three  thousand  dollars  down  in 
cash  and  agreed  to  pay  one  hundred  and  fifty  a  month  besides  an  extra 
one  thousand  a  year.  Through  all  the  trouble  that  has  ensued,  they 
have  kept  up  their  payments.  The  Doctor  has  a  large  and  successful 
practice.  He  is,  moreover,  by  all  accounts,  capable  and  straightforward 
in  business. 

Six  people  went  over,  on  that  morning  of  September  eighth,  to  the 
corner  of  Charlevoix  and  Garland.  They  were  Dr.  Sweet,  Gladys,  Joe 
Mack  (who  drove  the  Doctor’s  car,  a  Buick)  Henry  Sweet,  Dr.  Otis 
Sweet  (a  practicing  dentist,  whom  I  have  mentioned  before),  his  friend, 
William  E.  Davis  (a  graduate  pharmacist  and  at  that  time  a  prohibi¬ 
tion  agent),  and  Henry’s  chum,  John  Tatting.  Both  Henry  and  John 
expected  to  leave  within  a  week  for  Wilberforce  College,  where  Latting 
also  is  a  student.  -School  was  to  open  on  the  fifteenth  of  September. 
Dr.  Otis  Sweet  and  Davis  intended  to  room  with  the  Sweet  family  for 
the  winter.  It  was,  including  little  Iva,  to  be  a  household  of  five. 

The  younger  people  that  Tuesday  morning  were  in  a  happy  mood, 
as  one  usually  is  when  moving  into  a  new  home,  especially  if  the  move 
has  been  long  looked  forward  to  and  eagerly  anticipated,  but  under¬ 
neath  the  high  spirits  was  grim  anxiety.  Dr.  Sweet  himself  was  full 
of  anxious  forebodings,  for  ominous  rumors  had  reached  him — rumors 
so  sinister  that  although  he  had  bought  the  house  in  June  he  had  al¬ 
ready  delayed  for  three  months  his  actual  moving  into  it.  You  see, 
a  wave  of  race  prejudice,  which  for  several  years  had  been  gathering 
volume,  had  at  last  burst  with  virulent  violence  over  the  whole  length 
and  breadth  of  Detroit. 

“If  I  had  known,”  Dr.  Sweet  later  said  to  me  earnestly,  “if  I  had 
known  how  bitter  that  neighborhood  was  going  to  be,  I  wouldn’t  have 


32 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


taken  that  house  as  a  gift.  But  after  I  had  bought  it,  I  felt  that  I 
could  never  again  respect  myself  if  I  allowed  a  gang  of  hoodlums  to 
keep  me  out  of  it.” 

Much  has  been  made  of  the  fact  that  the  Sweets  did  not  take  much 
furniture  to  the  new  home.  This  was  obviously  because  they  had  been 
living  with  the  Mitchells  and  had  not  as  yet  acquired  very  many  be¬ 
longings.  The  truck  brought  over,  however,  a  bedroom  set,  odds  and 
ends,  besides  trunks'  and  food,  and  some  kitchen  equipment.  Gladys’ 
chief  object  on  that  first  day  was,  as  any  housewife  can  easily  under¬ 
stand,  to  get  things  clean.  There  was  a  hired  man  there  to  "help  line 
up  things  expeditiously.  He  also — Norris  Murray  is  his  name — is  one 
of  the  defendants.  It  was  by  pure  chance  that  he,  as  well  as  Joseph 
Mack,  Dr.  Sweet’s  chauffeur,  was  involved  in  the  riot.  Pawns,  both  of 
them  are,  caught  in  the  cruel  mesh  of  circumstances. 

In  spite  of  her  solicitude  over  the  outcome,  Gladys — who  is  a1 
very  feminine  type — felt  serene  in  her  confidence  in  Dr.  Sweet’s  abil¬ 
ity  to  meet  emergencies,  and  more  or  less  contentedly  she  set  the  col¬ 
lege  boys— Henry  and  Latting — and  the  hired  man  to  work  while  Dr.. 
Otis  Sweet  and  Mr.  Davis  attended  to  straightening,  out  some  of  their 
own  various  possessions  and  gave  plenty  of  advice.  Dr.  Sweet,  seeing: 
that  all  was  going  well,  departed  for  his  office.  They  had  a  makeshift 
lunch,  and,  in  the  afternoon,  Dr.  Carter  (a  friend  of  the  Sweets)  gaily 
brought  out  the  newly  purchased  dishes.  In  the  late  afternoon — after 
five  o’clock  it  was — Edna  Butler  (an  expert  needlewoman  who  works 
for  the  Woman’s  Exchange)  and  Serena  Rochelle  (employed  by  a 
well  known  decorating  firm  in  Detroit)  came  out  to  help  Gladys  de¬ 
cide  positively  what  furniture  would  best  fit  the  various  spaces  so  that 
she  could  be  as  expeditious  as  possible  when  she  and  Dr.  Sweet  went 
down  the  next  morning  to  make  the  actual  purchases.  The  girls  were 
enthusiastic  and  gave  themselves  up  to  happy  planning.  All  you  young 
housewives,  who  are  just  about  to  get  again  into  your  own  homes  after 
sojourning  with  even  the  most  delightful  of  parents,  can  imagine  how 
Gladys  felt. 

She  was  shaken  rudely  enough  into  a  different  attitude  when  one 
of  the  men  noticed  that  people  were  coming  along  the  street  in  more 
than  ordinary  numbers  and  pausing  to  look  at  the  house.  They  passed  j 
— these  strangers — repassed,  passed  again  (Gladys  watched  one  woman 
go  back  and  forth  no  less  than  sixteen  times).  For  on  that  first  eve¬ 
ning,  the  police  did  not,  at  the  beginning,  permit  any  one  person  to  linger) 
unduly  long.  They  made  some  effort — or  at  least  the  appearance  of 
an  effort — to  keep  the  people  moving. 

In  spite  of  this,  the  crowd  gathered  so  steadily  that  the  two  young  \ 
women — Miss  Butler  and  Miss  Rochelle — felt  timid  about  going  through  i 
it  and  decided  to  spend  the  night  with  the  Sweets.  The  exact  size  of  ; 
the  crowd  is  one  of  the  big  points  of  argument  in  the  case,  but  it  is  1 
certain  that  it  was  large  enough  to  cause  very  real  concern  to  the 
group  of  people  whom  it  was  so  curiously  and  hostilely  watching.  Mid-  ! 
night  came,  and  there  were  still  from  five  to  eight  hundred  people 
there.  From  time  to  time,  groups  of  them  (the  Sweets  heard  later)  | 
gathered  in  little  knots  in  the  confectionery  store  on  Charlevoix,  next 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius  33 


[  o  the  corner  grocery.  It  was  about  three  o’clock  in  the  morning  before 
he  ghoulish  crowd  dispersed.  By  daybreak  all  had  scattered. 

Now  while  this  whole  experience  was  unutterably  disagreeable  to 
Gladys,  she  was  not  exactly — on  that  first  night — frightened  by  it.  She 
;  lad  lived  peacefully  for  so  many  years  in  Detroit  that  in  spite  of  the 
>utrages  perpetrated  against  other  Negroes,  it  just  did  not  seem  real 
,  o  her  that  she,  herself,  could  be  in  actual  danger.  This  state  of  mind, 

!  lowever,  was  a  very  different  one  from  that  of  the  Negroes  who  had 
ieen  raised  in  the  South.  And  for  very  good  reasons,  as  I  shall  pres- 
ntly  explaip  to  you. 

Down  in  Florida,  for  several  years  Henry  Sweet  daily  passed  a 
kide-spreading  tree.  At  first  glance  it  was  beautiful  enough  but  it  was 
aden,  that  tree,  with  lead  from  the  guns  that  had  riddled  a  Negro’s 
iody  with  bullets.  With  his  own  eyes,  he  saw  the  ashes  (while  they 
vere  still  smoking  hot)  from  which  the  charred  remains  of  a  lynched 
segro  (in  Polk  County,  Florida),  had  within  the  hour  been  removed, 
loing  down  a  dusty  road  one  day  (near  Bartow,  Florida,  on  Peace 

I  liver)  Dr.  Ossian  Sweet,  then  a  boy,  saw  a  crowd  of  some  five  t’hou- 
and  white  people  driving  along  a  Negro  youth.  Fred  Rochelle  was  his 
tame.  He  saw  them  pour  kerosene  over  him  and  set  fire  to  the  living 
ilesh.  With  his  own  ears  he  heard  the  poor  wretch’s  shrieks  and 
roans.  Hidden  and  terrified,  he  watched  the  crowd  turn  the  whole 
iiccasion  into  a  Roman  holiday  and,  their  victim  dead,  get  gloriously 
runk.  He  saw  the  morbid  laughingly  take  pictures  of  the  frightful 
cene,  and  then  by  the  dozen  pick  off  pieces  of  the  burned  bones  and 
lesh  to  take  home  as  souvenirs  of  their  participation  in  the  sadistic 
rgy.  It  is  ghastly  enough  to  hear  about,  I  can  assure  you.  (I  have 
i  common  kindness  spared  you  the  more  gruesome  details.)  I  leave 
ou  to  imagine  what  it  must  have  been  to  see  and  what  a  profound 
npression  it  must  have  made  on  the  mind  and  heart  of  a  sensitive 
oy.  Indeed,  from  their  own  first-hand  knowledge  of  outrages  perpe- 
rated  against  Negroes,  the  Sweets  had  every  reason  to  fear  physical 
iolence  from  that  passing,  repassing,  muttering  crowd. 

In  the  morning,  however,  as  I  have  told  you,  the  street  appar- 
ntly  wore  its  normal  aspect.  Gladys’  two  girl  friends  left  for  their 
vork,  and  presently  Dr.  Otis  Sweet  and  Dr.  Davis  also  left  for  theirs, 
ibout  noon,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Sweet  themselves  went  downtown  to  pur- 
hase  their  furniture — a  walnut  dining-room  set,  two  bedroom  sets  (they 
lready  had  one)  and  some  overstuffed  chairs  and  a  walnut  table  for 
le  living  room.  Joe  Mack,  as  usual,  drove  the  doctor’s  car  and  Henry 
nd  John  Latting  with  Murray,  again  hired  for  the  day,  had  promised 
b  have  all  spick  and  span  by  the  time  Gladys  and  Dr.  Sweet  returned 
t  the  evening.  This  they  did  just  about  the  time  people  were  going 
ome  from  work.  They  were  tired  from  their  busy  day  of  shopping, 

:  was  warm  and  Gladys  sat  down  on  the  porch  to  rest  for  a  little  and 
,  lance  through  a  magazine. 

Three  men  (Leonard  G.  Morse,  Charles  B.  Washington,  and 
lewett  Watson),  all  from  the  Liberty  Life  Insurance  office,  stopped 
n  their  way  home  to  see  Dr.  Sweet  about  some  further  details  con- 
ected  with  a  life  insurance  policy  which  he  had  recently  taken  out  with 
lem.  As  he  is  an  examiner  for  that  company  he  knew  the  men  rather 


Clarence  Darrow  s  Two  Great  Trials 


b-t 


well— although  they  are  by  no  means  intimate  friends — and  as  Glady 
was  just  starting  to  get  dinner,  Dr.  Sweet  invited  them  to  take  pot-luck  )|( 
They  accepted  and  three  of  them — the  Doctor,  Washington  and  Mors>  ja: 
— presently  started  a  quiet  game  of  cards.  Mr.  Watson  picked  up  j  fa 
magazine  and  began  to  read  an  article  on  South  America. 

Washington,  this  is  perhaps  as  good  a  moment  as  any  to  tell  you  Is( 
is  a  short,  very  dark,  rather  homely,  wistful  little  man,  of  about  thirty  ^ 
five  or  so,  a  graduate  of  Howard  University  (in  Washington,  D.  C.)  • 
Tie  is  an  emotional  type.  His  loyalty  both  to  his  race  and  to  th  jg 
Sweets  is  genuine  and  deep.  Watson,  also  fine,  whole  hearted  and  in  - 
telligent,  is  very  thin  and  angular,  considerably  lighter  than  Wash  K 
ington  and  just  as  tall  as  Washington  is  short.  Together  they  in  ;;; 
evitably  remind  one,  by  the  amusing  difference  in  their  stature,  o  t 
Mutt  and  Jeff.  It  was,  of  course,  but  accident  that  involved  them  ii 
this  tragedy.  Morse  is  a  nervous  man.  Not  quite  light  enough  to  h  ][r 
called  a  mulatto,-  he  is  almost  bald,  of  medium  height,  and  is  some.;; 
where  in  his  late  thirties  or  early  forties.  When  arrested,  he  becam  3|| 
badly  rattled  and  made  statements  which  resulted  in  his  becoming  on  Iri 
of  the  three  chief  defendants.  He  is  not  a  very  stable  character.  H  J 
has  moments  of  vision,  of  course,  and  a  fundamental  race  loyalty,  bu  ;y 
you  see  it  was  not  his  home  that  was  involved,  nor  are  the  Sweets,  a  ?|j 
I  have  pointed  out  before,  particular  friends  of  his.  They  are  mere! 
acquaintances.  Therefore  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if,  as  I  surmise  - 
he  is  chiefly  concerned  with  seeing  himself  safely  out  of  the  whol  ; 
bitter  business.  They  remained — these  three  insurance  men — after  eventi  ;c 
began  to  shape  themselves  so  dramatically,  for  two  reasons :  because  o: 
the  whole  it  seemed  quite  as  dangerous  to  go  as  to  stay;  and  becaus  fl 
they  felt  that  only  cowards  could  desert  anyone  under  such  circumstance 
as  those  in  which  the  Sweets  found  themselves. 

These  three,  then,  with  the  two  boys  Henry  and  Latting  (lik  , 
Henry  himself,  a  thoroughly  likable,  splendid  young  fellow),  Gladys 
Joe  Mack  and  Murray  were  in  the  house  as  Gladys,  with  the  help  o  ® 
Henrv  and  Latting,  got  the  dinner.  There  were,  you  see,  in  all  nin 
people  there  and  she  knew  that  Davis  and  Dr.  Otis  Sweet  would  soo:  ; 
be  home.  Little  Iva,  I  am  glad  to  state,  was  safely  with  the  Mitchell; 
-Who,  when  there  is  an  adoring  grandmother  available,  takes  a  bab 
into  the  confusion  of  an  unsettled  house?  Lucky  enough  for  the  tin  , 
tot  that  she  wasn’t  there.  As  Arthur  Garfield  Hays  bitingly  commented 
in  court,  the  fact  that  she  was  not  with  her  parents  was  probably  tlv 
only  reason  she  wasn’t  arrested. 

And  now,  before  I  describe  to  you  the  events  of  the  next  few  ter 
rible  hours,  you  must  meet  Dr.  Sweet,  himself.  In  appearance,  he  i 
a  well  set  up,  broad-shouldered,  quiet,  firm-jawed,  dignified  man,  wit 
tired  eyes,  so  dark  that  beside  them  his  brown  face  seems  considerabl 
lighter  than  it  really  is.  Lie  has  a  small,  black  mustache,  full,  firri 
but  not  thick  lips,  nice  teeth,  and  a  good  forehead.  His  whole  heal  ■ 
is  well  shaped  and  his  face'  keen  and  alert  in  expression.  One  wouk 
I  think,  surmise  almost  at  first  glance  that  he  was  a  professional  mar 
Also,  even  in  a  crowd,  a  careful  observer  would  perceive  that  he  wa: 
in  all  probability,  a  college-bred  man.  In  a,  quiet  unostentatious  waj 
he  is  well  groomed. 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


35 


Naturally  an  extravert,  born  with  a  gift  for  getting  on  with  peu- 
)le,  a  natural  leader,  hospitable,  and  sociably  inclined,  he  has  been  so 
lampered  in  his  profession  simply  because  of  his  color,  has  been  so 
)ften  insulted  on  the  one  hand  and  on  the  other  condescended  to,  has 
>een  so  lied  to,  deceived,  robbed  and  humiliated  merely  because  of  his 
ace  that  he  has  become  a  profoundly  cynical  man.  Where  Gladys 
hinks  of  herself  simply  as  a  human  being — you  can  take  my  word  for 
t  that  she  is  scarcely  more  conscious  of  the  fact  that  she  is  a  Negro 
han  I  am  conscious  of  the  fact  that  I  am  white — Dr.  Sweet  never 
eally  forgets  his  race.  He  bleeds  with  every  Negro  who  is  mis- 
reated  and  triumphs  with  every  Negro  who  achieves.  He  is  keenly 
nd  shrewdly  aware  of  all  the  weaknesses  and  shortcomings  of  his 
ieople.  In  spite  of  them,  he  has  infinite  faith  in  the  ultimate  future 
f  his  race.  With  him,  race  loyalty  amounts  almost  to  a  passion, 
ileanwhile,  wisely  or  foolishly,  he  makes  many  compromises.  Quite 
ebunked  along  religious  lines,  he  does  not,  as  does  Gladys,  frankly 
all  himself  an  agnostic.  For  one  thing,  his  father  is  a  Methodist 
readier  (he  owns  a  little  place  in  Bartow,  Florida,  on  which  along 
irith  other  things  he  raises  a  few  oranges).  Then,  too,  nearly  all  of 
)r.  Sweet’s  patients  are  church  members.  Moreover,  they  take  their 
eligion  seriously.  Very  seriously  indeed,  and  the  Doctor,  to  put  it 
lainly,  does  not  like  to  antagonize  them.  A  materialist,  he  comprehends 
loroughly  (perhaps  almost  a  little  too  thoroughly),  the  value  of  money, 
'o  rise  in  his  profession  and  to  amass  a  substantial  fortune — those  are 
le  two  goals  that  early  in  life  he  set  for  himself.  Never,  for  a  moment, 
as  he  lost  sight  of  them.  He  is,  I  may  add,  the  sort  -of  man  who,  white 
r  colored,  is  destined  to  be  successful. 

He  was  only  twelve  when,  grimly  determined  to  make  something  of 
imself,  he  left  home.  He  has  been  a  bellhop,  a  waiter — in  hotels  and 
n  board  steamships— a  pullman  porter  and  a  jack-of-all  trades.  The 
Idest  of  ten  children,  it  is  he,  you  see,  who  has  blazed  the  trail  for  his 
ounger  brothers.  For  while  he,  himself,  had  neither  financial  help 
or  encouragement,  he  has  been  generous  with  both  Dr.  Otis  Sweet  and 
fenry.  Not  that  these  young  men  haven’t  had  to  work  hard  for  their 
iucation.  Even  after  Dr.  Otis  Sweet  graduated  from  his  dental  course, 
;  had  to  work  a  year,  on  the  Wabash  Railroad,  as  a  waiter,  to  earn 
lough  to  equip  his  office,  but  Dr.  Sweet  was  always  there,  as  it  were, 

<  the  background.  At  a  pinch,  he  could  be  borrowed  from,  and  there 
:  for  both  the  boys  the  stimulating  thought  that  what  he  has  done  they 
o  can  do. 

To  digress  a  moment  from  Dr.  Ossian  Sweet,  let  me  say  that  I 
rst  met  Dr.  Otis  Sweet  in  his  own  office.  Gladys  took  me  there  and 
fe  talked  while  he  was  giving  her  a  dental  treatment.  With  six  people 
aiting  in  his  reception  room,  I  had  not  the  conscience  otherwise  to 
ike  up  his  time.  Fie  is  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  and  has  been 
jacticing  for  two  years.  Everything  in  his  office  was  spick  and  span 
ad  sparklingly  clean.  Unlike  his  brothers,  he  was  educated  entirely 
p  the  South — at  Florida  State  College,  Tallahassee,  and  then  at  Meharry 
jniversity  (a  Medical,  Dental,  Pharmaceutical  college).  He  had  in  his 
( fice  a  quite  imposing  array  of  Little  Blue  Books.  But  although,  as  I 
■itched  him  work,  I  saw  that  he  was  extremely  skilful  in  the  use  of 


36 


Clarence  Darrow’s  T wo  Great  T rials 


his  hands,  he  certainly  impressed  me  as  a  happy-go-lucky  sort  of  chap 
who  would  much  rather  go  to  a  dance  than  sit  down  for  a  quiet  evenin; 
of  reading.  He  has  a  merry  face,  and  a  general  care-free  manner.  Id 


belongs  to  the  Acirema  Club,  a  colored  men’s  club,  the  160  members  o 


which  meet  for  good  times.  He  is  a  great  baseball  fan,  a  Methodist  am 


lodge  member,  and  Gladys  says  he  is  a  very  good  mixer,  but  I  found  him 


agreeable  as  he  was,  quite  inarticulate.  “The  difference,”  Dr.  Ossiai 
Sweet  explained  to  me  later,  “between  Henry  and  Otis,  is  the  differ 


a: 


ence  between  a  Negro  who  has  been  educated  in  the  North  and  om 


who  has  been  educated  in  the  South. 


Of  the  three  brothers,  Dr.  Sweet  has  decidedly  the  best  mind 
He,  himself,  was  graduated  at  Wilber  force,  Ohio,  and  from  there  wen 
to  Howard  University,  where  he  took  his  M.  D.  degree.  During  tb 
war  he  was  in  the  Reserve  Officers  Training  Camp.  The  obstacles  a  col 
ored  doctor  must  face  surely  are  so  obvious  that  they  need  mere  men 
tioning  to  be  comprehended.  Take,  for  instance,  to  cite  only  one  o 
them,  the  difficulty  of  securing  a  desirable  interneship  in  a  hospita 
where  the  best  surgeons  operate.  The  foremost  hospitals  say  ver 
virtuously  and  self-righteously  (and  indeed  often  quite  truly)  :  “We  hav 
no  objection  to  colored  internes,  but  our  patients — .” 

“If  I  want  to  take  a  case  to  the  City  Hospital  here  in  Detroit, 
Dr.  Sweet  explained,  “I  must  practically  turn  my  patient  over  to  some 
one  whose  work  perhaps  I  feel  is  inferior  to  my  own.  If  I  wish  t< 
give  an  hour’s  time. weekly  at  any  good  clinic,  my  services  are  no 
wanted.” 

He  does  not,  understand  me,  say  these  things  vindictively.  Rathe 


he  speaks  with  bitter  patience.  Surging  through  his  thoughts  is  justi 


fied  resentment.  He  is  a  capable  surgeon.  Moreover,  without  being  ii 


the  least  conceited  or  arrogant,  he  knows  his  own  worth..  (I  hav 


visited  his  well-equipped  office  and  Dunbar  Hospital  where  he  operates 
and  I  have  discussed  him  at  some  length  with  various  doctors,  whit 
and  colored.)  He  is,  in  short,  a  proud,  self-respecting  man  of  brains 
with  few  illusions,  who  intends,  without  minimizing  the  obstacles  ii 
his  path,  to  succeed  in  spite  of  them. 

He  was,  I  very  much  suspect,  in  danger  of  settling  down  to  be 
coming  just  a  successful  doctor  and  nothing  more.  Then  this  troubli 
started.  It  brought  him — his  trial,  with  all  its  implications — in  con 
tact  with  intellectual  people.  Heretofore  the  doctor’s  interests  had  rui 
almost  exclusively  along  scientific  and  racial  lines.  Now  he  met  mam 
literary  folk  and  people  who  had  delved  into  economics.  He  realizec 
how  many  sincere  broad-minded  white  people,  as  well  as  colored  people 
were  interested  in  the  race  problem.  Immediately  after  Christmas,  hi 
and  Gladys  went  to  New  York,  Washington,  Baltimore  and  Chicago,  ii 
all  of  which  towns  (besides  several  others)  the  doctor  spoke.  (I  an 
told  he  has  a  very  pleasant  platform  personality.)  His  speeches  were  al 
made  in  an  effort  to  help  the  National  Association  for  the  Advancemen 
of  Colored  People  raise  a  defense  fund  of  fifty  thousand  dollars.  Thi 
fund  is  to  be  used  not  only  to  help  win  the  Sweet  trial,  but  for  tb 
protection  of  other  Negroes  whose  cases  are  now  being  fought  by  tb 
National  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Colored  People. 

From  the  moment  I  began  to  talk  with  Dr.  Sweet  about  the  event 


Ik 


It 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


37 


hat  led  up  to  the  riot,  I  began  to  get  an'  entirely  new  set  of  impressions, 
de  is  the  head  of  the  family,  and,  as  such,  feels  responsible  for  the  lives 
ind  happiness  of  these  younger  people,  whose  confidence  in  his  judgment 
s  so  implicit  as  to  amount  almost  to  hero  worship.  This  being  true, 
md  the  situation  in  Detroit  being  what  it  was,  it  is  no  wonder  he  had 
'rave  misgivings. 

“What  I  don’t  understand,”  I  exclaimed,  the  first  evening  I  met 
lim,  “is  why  the  people  in  that  particular  neighborhood  should  have  been 
o  intense  in  their  prejudices.  There  are  plenty  of  other  neighborhoods 
.  am  told,  in  which  colored  families  live.” 

“Yes,”  interrupted  Mr.  Perry,  the  colored  lawyer  on  the  case,  who 
lappened  to  be  with  us  (more  about  him  later).  “My  wife  and  I  have 
>een  living,  until  recently,  in  a  house  (a  two-story  flat)  in  which  we, 
>n  the  upper  floor  and  a  cousin’s  family  on  the  lower  floor,  were  the 
bnly  colored  people  in  the  block.  When  we  moved,  another  colored 
family  took  our  apartment.  In  fact,  my  wife’s  aunt  owns  it.  It  is  still 
he  only  house  occupied  by  Negroes  in  the  entire  block.” 

“When  Mrs.  Stark  bought  her  house,”  commented  Dr.  Sweet  dryly, 
‘a  quarter  of  a  million  white  people  and  something  like  seventy-five 
thousand  Negroes  hadn’t  come  up  to  Detroit  from  the  South.  Those 
,vho  were  here,  both  white  and  colored,  had  the  Northern  point  of  view. 
They  went  their  own  ways  and  respected  each  other.” 

Vividly,  sometimes  rapidly,  often  dramatically,  and  always  inter¬ 
estingly  in  clear,  well  chosen,  well  enunciated  English,  Dr.  Sweet  ex¬ 
plained  to  me  the  race  situation  in  Detroit.  Later  I  talked  with  others 
on  the  same  subject.  Among  those  who  seemed  particularly  well  in¬ 
formed  was  Mr.  Paul  Dennie,  of  the  Constitutional  League,  which  was 
organized  as  a  counter  movement  to  the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  It  was  Mr. 
Dennie  ‘who  told  me  that,  at  an  executive  board  meeting  of  the  Con¬ 
stitutional  League  last  summer,  it  was  the  consensus  of  opinion  that 
Detroit  was  more  ridden  with  race  hatred  toward  Negroes  than  any 
spot  north  of  the  Mason  and  Dixon  line.  Both  Mr.  Dennie  and  Dr. 
Sweet  agreed  that  the  Klan  is  the  acute  cause  of  the  racial  problem  in 
Detroit.  But  the  underlying  causes  of  it  go  deep. 

Since  1915,  when  Ford  started  paying  five  dollars  a  day,  all  sorts  of 
scissor-bills  and  illiterate  white  people  (besides  some  very  fine  types) 
have  come  north  to  take  advantage  of  what  seemed  to  them  high  wages: 
Most  of  them  were  already,  when  they  arrived,  filled  to  the  brim  with 
pace  prejudices.  When  the  war  came,  and  many  young  men  were 
drafted,  Police  Commissioner  Inches  (an  alleged  Klansman)  actually 
advertised  extensively  in  southern  papers  offering  inducements  to  men 
there  to  join  the  Police  Department  in  Detroit.  Each  prejudiced  man 
was  careful  to  instil  his  own  attitude  into  his  friends.  Slowly  but  surely 
the  poison  spread.  A  feeling  of  infinite  superiority  toward  Negroes  per¬ 
colated  through  practically  the  entire  police  force.  It  percolated  too 
through  the  men  who  worked  side  by  side  with  Negroes  in  industry. 
(Be  it  said  to  Ford’s  credit  that  he  has  consistently  employed  Negroes 
in  proportion  to  their  number  in  Detroit). 

About  1917,  the  Klan  began  to  get  in  its  deadly  work.  And  while  it 
is  true  that  the  Klan  is  not  quite  as  active  as  it  was,  still  you  can  judge 
for  yourselves  of  its  present  importance  in  Detroit  when  I  tell  you  that 

i 


38 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


111: 


Sltt 


. 


- 


:i( 


■ 


four  members  of  that  city’s  present  common  council  were,  at  the  la: 
election,  endorsed  by  the  Klan.  (One  of  these  members  had  been 
former  Cyclops.)  The  campaign  for  mayor  was  distinctly  a  Klan  an 
Anti-Klan  fight.  When  in  the  winter  of  1924-1925,  the  office  of  mayc 
became  unexpectedly  vacant  the  campaign  was  a  straight  Klan-Anti-Kla 
issue.  Moreover,  constantly  the  members  of  the  Klan  (and  their  wives 
unofficially  tried  to  impress  upon  the  people  in  Detroit  that  their  prof 
erty  would  decrease  in  value  if  Negroes  moved  near  it.  (Even  thos  • 
who  no  longer  care  a  snap  for  the  Klan  as  an  organization  retair 
today,  the  prejudices  acquired  while  they  were  active  in  it.) 

Meanwhile,  the  shortage  of  housing  facilities  in  the  so-called  Negr 
quarters,  is  so  overwhelming  that  colored  people  absolutely  must  scatte 
if  they  wish  to  own  any  homes.  It  is  a  vicious  circle:  race  prejudice  i 
fanned  by  the  genuine  fear  of  property  holders  that  their  own  homes- 
often  bought  with  great  difficulty — will  decrease  in  value,  and  thi 
economic  fear  is  played  upon  and  draws  its  life  from  race  prejudio 
toward  the  Negroes.  Naturally,  politicians  take  advantage  of  this  racia 
economic  situation  and  play  it  up  for  all  it  is  worth.  It  is  significant, 
think,  that  it  was  shortly  after  that  Klan-Anti-Klan  campaign  for  mayo 
in  the  winter  of  1924-1925  that  this  violent  attack  of  anti-Negro  hysteri 
struck  Detroit.  From  early  in  March  of  that  year  (1925)  one  outrag 
against  Negroes  followed  swiftly  upon  the  heels  of  another. 

It  was  in  March  that  the  house  of  a  woman  with  a  three-weeks-ok 
baby  was  stoned  and  when  she  attempted  to  defend  herself  she  wai 
taken  down  to  the  police  station.  Less  than  a  month  later,  a  viciou 
crowd  routed  out  a  colored  family  from  a  block  that  bordered  on  a  Negri 
neighborhood.  Even  colored  families  that  had  lived  for  years  in  one 
place  were  now  intimidated  and  forced  to  move.  Usually  this  was 
done  by  quiet  means — they  merely  received  threatening  letters  anc 
vigorous  warnings.  Then  came  the  case  of  Dr.  Turner. 

Like  Dr.  Sweet,  Dr.  Turner  is  a  colored  physician  and  surgeon 
He  had  bought  a  house  in  a  neighborhood,  almost  twenty  miles  from1 
the  one  in  which  Dr.  Sweet’s  home  is.  When  he  moved  in,  a  crowd 
gathered,  broke  every  one  of  his  windows,  tore  many  of  the  tiles  off 
his  roof,  and  ripped  the  lamps  down  from  his  ceilings.  More,  the) 
backed  a  van  up  to  his  door,  pitched  his  furniture  into  it,  and  at  the 
point  of  a  gun  made  him  sign  away  his  interest  in  the  property.  Hi, 
wife,  more  spirited,  refused  to  sign.  The  angry  crowd  took  to  stones 
literally  tore  up  his  Lincoln  car  and  the  Turners  barely  escaped  with  their 
lives. 

“Turner,”  commented  Dr.  Sweet,  fine  irony  in  his  tone,  “always 
had  the  greatest  confidence  in  the  word  of  white  people ;  he  felt  that 
they  belonged  to  a  race  superior  to  his  own.  Consequently,  when  they 
wanted  to  enter  his  house,  to  rob  him,  it  wasn’t  necessary  to  break 
down  the  door.  It  was  far  simpler  to  deceive  him.  One  of  the  leaders 
simply  knocked,  and  when  Dr.  Turner  came  to  the  door  said,  ‘Open 
Turner,  I’m  your  friend.’  Turner  believed  him  and  opened  the  door, 
The  next  moment  he  was  dough  in  the  hands  of  the  mob.” 

Now  Dr.  Sweet  had  bought  his  home  before  this  Turner  episoc 
occurred.  Less  than  two  weeks  afterwards,  V.  A.  Bristol,  a  colored 
undertaker,  was  forcibly  prevented  from  occupying  his  property 


Marcet  H aid eman- Julius 


39 


Iristol,  it  seems,  had  bought  his  lot  years  ago  before  Sweet  had  even 
inished  his  medical  course.  As  time  rolled  by,  and  land  increased  in 
alue,  Bristol  decided  to  build  a  house — to  rent  to  white  people.  The 
VO  white  families  that  occupied  it  in  succession  took  advantage  of 
re  fact  that  their  landlord  was  a  Negro,  and  would  not  pay  their 
ent.  As  he  could  neither  afford  to  lose  this  money  nor  bring  a  steady 
uccession  of  lawsuits,  Bristol  at  last  made  up  his  mind  to  rent  to 
olored  people.  But  every  time  a  colored  tenant  was  ready  to  move  in, 
re  neighborhood  intimidated  him.  There  was  the  house — empty.  His 
honey  was  tied  up  in  house  and  lot.  He  concluded  that  there  was  only 
ne  solution  for  him — to  move  into  the  house  himself.  In  this  particular 
ase,  it  was  the  women,  presumably  wives  of  Klansmen,  who  were  most 
n  the  rampage.  One  woman  went  so  far  as  to  stand  on  a  box  and 
hout  hysterically,  “If  you  call  yourselves  men  and  are  afraid  to  move 
lese  niggers  out,  we  women  will  move  them  out,  you  cowards !” 

Other  cases  followed,  but  I  will  tell  you  of  only  one  more,  that  of 
'letcher,  a  waiter.  The  man  next  door  to  the  house  into  which  he 
noved  had  just  had  two  tons  of  coal  delivered.  Not  a  piece  of  it  was 
jft,  by  the  time  the  crowd  had  finished  its  demonstration.  Terrified, 
'letcher  shot  and  wounded  one  of  his  tormentors  in  the  leg.  But  as 
;  chanced,  he  had  friends  high  in  power  and  never  was  indict e'd.  It 
s  significant ,  that  since  the  Szveet  trouble,  no  colored  family  has  been 
wlcstcd. 

What  was  happening  was  that  little  so-called  Neighborhood  Im- 
rovement  Associations  were  springing  up  all  over  Detroit.  Their 
wowed  purpose  was,  of  course,  to  further  and  support  neighborhood 
nprovement  in  general,  but  their  real  reason  for  being  was  to  keep 
heir  vicinities  free  from  Negroes.  The  man  who  lectured  at  the  organ- 
nation  of  the  Improvement  Association  in  Turner’s  neighborhood  was 
he  very  man,  Dr.  Sweet  said,  who  came  over  to  lecture  at  the  organ¬ 
isation  of  the  Improvement  Association  in  the  Sweet’s  neighborhood, 
;ear  Waterworks  Park.  He  spoke  at  the  Howe  School,  diagonally 
dross  from  the  home  Sweet  had  bought  in  June.  He  spoke  moreover 
o  an  overflow  meeting.  In  fact,  it  was  such  a  large  meeting  that  they 
yere  compelled  to  move  into  the  schoolyard  itself.  Unobserved,  many 
white  Negroes  were  purposely  in  the  audience,  but  when  the  trial  came 
up,  it  was  not  necessary  to  call  any  of  them  as  witnesses  for  the  reason 
[hat  the  State’s  witnesses  admitted  that  one  of  the  chief  purposes  of 
he  Waterworks  Park  Improvement  Association  was  to  keep  out  Negroes 
rom  that  neighborhood. 

I  11  As  I  understand  it,  these  people,  some  of  whom  are  foreigners, 

cere  not  particularly  hostile  to  Negroes  until  they  were  all  stirred  up 
iy  this  meeting,  which  many  of  them  had  attended  in  the  first  instance 
jherely  out  of  curiosity.  But  by  the  time  they  had  been  made  to  feel 
heir  own.  infinite  superiority  to  a  cpiiet  law-abiding  American  family 
for  three  generations — since  slavery  at  least — the  Sweets  and  Mitchells 
jiave  lived  in  this  country)  ;  by  the  time  these  noble  nordics  had  been 
|nade  to  realize  what  a  terrible  thing  it  would  be  for  them  and  their 
property  (if  they  had  any),  if  a  well-bred,  well-educated,  well-off  family 
T  darker  color  than  their  own  moved  into  their  neighborhood,  they 
vere  all  ready  to  start  trouble.  Such  movements,  it  is  scarcely  neces- 


40  Clarence  Darroiv  s  Two  Great  Trials 

sary  to  remind  you,  like  revivals,  go  in  waves.  Fundamentally,  peopl 
are  like  sheep.  Evidently,  the  people  in  Detroit  are  no  exception.  Th 
bitterest  man  in  the  neighborhood,  it  may  interest  you  to  know,  was  ai  t 
Assyrian.  .  , 

Now  perhaps  you  have  a  pretty  clear  idea  of  the  general  state  o 
Dr.  Sweet’s  mind  as  he  sat  that  hot  'September  evening  playing  card;  j 
with  his  acquaintances,  while  Gladys  with  the  boys’  help  got  supper 
Mack  looked  after  the  car,  and  Murray  did  those  last  bits  of  cleaning 
that  round  up  a  day’s  work,  intending  as  soon  as  he  had  his  suppei 
to  go  home.  I  want  you,  if  you  can,  to  put  yourself  in  the  Doctor’ 
place,  for  I  have  yet  to  mention  the  case  casually  to  a1  Detroiter  that 
do  not  hear  the  same  comment  given  in  a  hard  tone:  “He  was  warned 
he  knew  what  he  was  getting  into,  and  he  went  right  ahead  and  invitei 
trouble.’'  Apparently,  it  does  not  strike  them  that  to  warn  a  man  not  t»| 
enter  his  own  home  is  the  very  height  of  lawlessness.  I  want  to  impres 
upon  you  this :  that  Dr.  Sweet  has  not  only  race  consciousness,  but  ; 
race  conscience.  He  felt  keenly  that  each  Negro  who  allowed  himsel 
to  be  driven  from  his  home  made  it  that  much  harder  for  the  next  Negr 
to  own  desirable  property.  It  was  high  time  for  someone  to  have  mort 
firmness  and  courage  than  had  been  shown  heretofore  by  any  of  the  in 
timidated  Negroes.  It  was  time,  too,  for  someone  to  have  more  faitl 
in  the  rights  of  an  American  citizen.  It  is  those  rights,  let  me  reminc 
you,  not  merely  the  Sweets  themselves,  that  are  now  on  trial,  and  foi 
which  Clarence  Darrow  fights. 

Gladys  was  having  roast  pork— afresh  ham  they  ' call  it  up  here- 
baked  sweet  potatoes,  mustard  greens,  and  had  beatep  up  a  cake,  whicl 
with  ice  cream  and  coffee,  was  to  be  dessert.  From  time  to  time  sh< 
noticed  the  men  as  they  played,  because  as  her  dining-room  table  had  no 
yet  arrived,  she  wanted,  as  soon  as  they  finished  their  game,  to  us< 
the  card  table  for  their  dinner.  It  was  a  dinner  that  was  never  to  b( 
eaten. 

Suddenly  she  and  Henry  heard  an  exclamation,  “My  God,  look  a 
the  people !” 

Gradually  they  had  been  gathering  as  they  came  from  work 
Looking  through  the  windows  and  screen  door,  the  Sweets  and  theii 
friends  saw  a  crowd  that  even  as  they  watched  grew  from  instant  t 
instant.  Already  the  schoolyard  was  full !  So  was  the  space  aroum 
the  grocery  store !  People  were  in  the  alley,  on  the  porches  of  the  two 
flat  houses  opposite !  Cars  were  coming  and  parking — two  deep — an< 
people  were  no 'longer  moving.  They  were  a  seething,  staring,  shouting 
mob.  Stones  began  to  fly,  and  to  add  to  all  the  tension,  the  air  grev 
heavier  and  hotter.  With  Turner’s  and  Bristol’s  experiences  vividb 
before  them,  all  the  lynchings  of  which  the  surrounded  Negroes  hac 
heard  and  which  with  their  own  eyes  they  had  seen,  surged  into  thei: 
minds.  Fear  gripped  them. 

The  temper  of  the  crowd  can  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  three 
Negroes  on  their  way  home  were  attacked  as  they  passed,  in  their  car,  01 
the  outskirts  of  the  mob.  The  police,  some  of  them  property  owners  ii 
that  very  neighborhood,  either  could  not,  or  at  least  did  not,  make  an; 
effort  to  disperse  the  gathering  which  was  rapidly  taking  on  the  inten 
sity  of  feeling  and  hysteria  that  ends  in  a  riot.  In  the  midst  of  the  ten 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


41 


sion,  a  taxi  chugged  up  and  out  stepped  Davis  and  Dr.  Otis  Sweet. 
They  had  not  known,  until  they  approached  the  vicinity,  what  was 
transpiring.  Naturally,  their  first  impulse  was  to  rally  to  the  Sweets, 
who  were  only  too  obviously  in  grave  danger.  The  two  young  men  fled 
into  the  house  under  a  literal  barrage  of  stones,  coal,  rocks  and  brick 
hats  of  every  kind  and  description. 

“Niggers !  Niggers !”  the  crowd  shouted  “they’re  niggers — Get 
’em!  GET  THE  DAMN  NIGGERS!” 

In  the  turgid  atmosphere,  the  hot,  tired  crowd  that  for  more  than 
an  hour  (it  was  now  about  eight  o’clock)  expectantly  had  been  waiting 
for  something  exciting  to  happen,  eagerly  took  up  the  cry.  It  was  a 
match  to  dynamite. 

It  was  this  cry  that  Dr.  Sweet  heard  as  he  courageously  opened  the 
door  for  his  brother  and  Davis.  “When  I  opened  that  door,”  he  said, 
“to  let  them  in,  I  realized  that  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  stood  face  to 
face  with  that  same  mob  that  has  haunted  my  people  throughout  its 
entire  history.  I  knew  that  my  back  was  against  the  wall,  that  I  was 
black,  and  that  because  I  was  black  and  had  found  the  courage  to  buy 
a  home,  they  were  ready  to  wreak  their  vengeance  upon  me.  The  whole 
thing,”  he  added  with  a  quiet,  dramatic  intensity  that  even  now  gives 
me  the  shivers,  “the  whole  situation  filled  me  with  an  appalling  fear — a 
fear  that  no  one  could  comprehend  but  a  Negro,  and  that  Negro  one  who 
knew  the  history  behind  his  people.”  Henry  expressed  the  same  thought 
more  simply:  “It  looked  like  death  if  we  tried  to  hide,  and  it  looked  like 
death  if  we  tried  to  get  out.  We  didn’t  know  what  to  do.” 

What  they  did  do  was  to  pull  down  the  blinds  and  simply  wait, 
hoping  against  hope,  panic-stricken  in  the  half  dark.  Up  to  this  point 
the  mob  had  •  been,  merely  vicious  and  noisy.  A  window  had  been 
broken  and  the  stones  had  been  falling.  It  was  enough  to  strike  terror 
to  the  bravest  heart,  but  from  the  time  Otis  and  Davis  went  in,  it 
became  a  riot.  The  little  group  within  the  house  felt  desperate.  When 
shots  rang  out  and  they  thought  that  they  were  actually  being  fired  upon 
by  that  angry,  excitement-hungry  mob,  they  scattered  wildly  to  different 
parts  of  the  house.  Crowded  to  the  wall,  attacked,  they  were  in  danger 
of  their  very  lives.  Shots  were  fired  now  from  within  as  well  as  from 
without.  Pandemonium  reigned. 

In  the  midst  of  it  a  group  of  policemen  entered  the  house.  With 
the  mob  still  outside,  they  flung  up  all  the  shades,  turned  on  all  the 
lights,  recklessly  exposing  every  Negro  in  the  house  to  full  view,  and 
arrested  them  all.  Roughly — with  the  notable  exception  of  one  police¬ 
man,  Mr.  Hays,  of  whom  the  Sweets  speak  most  gratefully — the  of¬ 
ficers  hustled  the  men  into  a  hastily  summoned  patrol  wagon  which 
took  them  to  police  headquarters.  The  crowd  was  now  handled  per¬ 
emptorily  enough.  Soon  Mrs.  Sweet  was  taken,  by  way  of  the  front 
door,  to  a  Ford  car.  As  she  stepped  into  it  the  people  jeered  and  ap¬ 
plauded.  She,  also,  was  driven  to  the  station. 

It  was  there  that  she  and  the  others  learned  for  the  first  time  that 
a  man  had  been  killed,  and  a  boy  wounded.  They  asked  to  be  allowed 
to  use  the  telephone  to  call  a  lawyer,  but  this  request  was  refused. 
Instead  they  were  taken  separately  and  questioned  one  after  another 


42 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


from  ten  o’clock  until  between  three  and  four  in  the  morning,  at  which 
time,  they  were  told  they  were  all  charged  with  murder.  Late  Thurs¬ 
day  afternoon,  they  were  formally  indicted  for  the  murder  of  Leon 
Breiner  and  for  assault  (with  intent  to  kill)  upon  Eric  Houghberg. 

By  this  time,  Mrs.  Mitchell,  Gladys’  mother,  had  secured  the  serv¬ 
ices  of  three  colored  lawyers,  Julian  Perry,  Cecil  Rollette,  and  Charles 
Mahonay — but  they  were  not  allowed  to  see  their  clients.  Accordingly 
they  secured  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  compelling  the  State  to  produce 
them  in  court  Friday  morning.  Writ  or  no  writ,  when  Friday  morning 
came,  the  Sweets  and  their  friends  were  not  there.  In  explanation,  the 
assistant  prosecutor  asserted  that  the  feeling  was  so  intense  that  he 
dared  not  bring  them.  Instead  he,  produced  the  warrants.  Perry  and  his 
associates  thereupon  proceeded  to  go  over  the  assistant  prosecutor’s 
head,  and  finally  saw  Dr.  Sweet  and  the  others  between  three-thirty 
and  four  o’clock  on  Friday  afternoon.  They  had  been  arrested,  re¬ 
member,  Wednesday  evening!  Saturday  they  were  arraigned. 

Things  looked  pretty  gloomy.  Dr.  Sweet  was  attempting  to  secure 
the  services  of  Thomas  F.  Chawke  (generally  conceded  to  be  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  lawyers  in  Michigan)  when  the  National  Associa¬ 
tion  for  the  Advancement  of  Colored  People,  realizing  that  there  was 
far  more  involved  in  the  case  than  the  safety  of  the  Sweets  and  their 
friends,  sent  Walter  White,  their  assistant  secretary,  to  Detroit  to 
find  out  the  exact  facts.  He  investigated  them  thoroughly,  and  went 
back  at  once  to  New  York,  where  at  the  home  of  Arthur  Garfield 
Ilays,  he  interviewed — Clarence  Darrow.  Darrow,  always  instinctively 
and  irrevocably  on  the  side  of  justice  and  the  oppressed,  became  at  once 
interested  and  so  did  the  "Civil  Liberties  Union.  Darrow  came  to  De¬ 
troit  on  the  twelfth  of  October  to  get  an  adjournment  until  the  thirtieth 
of  that  month,  while  he  lined  up  for  battle. 

All  this  time,  the  whole  group  of  Negroes  (accused  of  murder), 
including  Mrs.  Sweet,  were  in  jail.  During  the  thirty  days  Gladys 
spent  there,  she  was  in  a  cell  with  three  other  young  colored  women. 
One  was  charged  with  murder,  one  for  breaking  a  prohibitory  law, 
and  one  for  jumping  her  bond.  Gladys  told  me  that  she  never  felt 
quite  real  during  her  stay  there.  It  never  seemed  to  her  that  she, 
Gladys  Sweet,  really  could  be  behind  bars,  involved  even  indirectly 
with  so  terrible  a  charge  as  murder.  It  was  all  a  hideous  dream, 
from  which  she  must  surely  awaken.  Some  things  just  simply  don’t 
happen  to  one!  That  a  quiet,  reserved,  law-abiding  woman  like  herself 
should  have  been  there  at  all,  was  incredible  enough.  That  she  should 
be  there,  charged  with  murder,  was  fantastic,  and  that  all  this  ghastly 
farrago  should  have  been  brought  about  merely  because  she  wished 
to  move  into  a  pretty  little  house  in  a  modest  working-class  neigh¬ 
borhood  made  her  feel  as  if  she  were  living  in  a  world  gone  suddenly 
mad.  After  thirty  days,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  prosecution. 
Judge  Murphy  had  the  good  sense  and  the  courage  to  grant  Darrow’s 
demand  that  she  be  admitted  to  bail.  But  the  rest  involved  in  the 
case  were  held  until  the  end  of  the  trial.  Then,  the  jury  disagreeing, 
all  were  released  under  $5,500  bonds  each,  with  the  exception  of  Dr.  j 
Ossian  Sweet,  himself,  Henry  Sweet  and  Leonard  Morse.  These  three 
were  each  put  under  $10,500  bonds.  The  State,  in  order  to  win' its 


Marcet  H aid eman- Julius 


43 


case,  was  obliged  to  prove  either  that  there  was  a  conspiracy  to  shoot 
to  kill,  or  they  had  to  prove  that  one  particular  person  fired  the  fatal 
shot.  Many  people  think  Breiner  was  shot  by  a  policeman  or  even  by 
one  of  the  members  of  the  crowd  itself.  He  was,  you  must  under¬ 
stand  clearly,  a  part  of  it.  The  current  story  that  he. was  sitting  on 
the  steps  of  his  own  home,  is  pure  fiction.  He  did,  however,  live  in 
the  neighborhood.  When  the  jury,  after  forty-six  hours,  returned  to 
the  court  room  to  deliver  its  verdict,  they  reported  a  disagreement  of 
seven  to  five.  It  is  generally  believed  that  the  seven  were  for  ac¬ 
quittal,  the  five  for  conviction. 

Now,  with  all  these  facts  clearly  in  your  mind,  you  will,  if  you 
please,  join  me  again  in  the  Sweets’  tiny  apartment.  It  is  furnished 
...with  some  of  the  pretty  new  things  purchased  the  day  of  the  riot. 
Most  of  them  are  still  in  the  house,  now  padlocked  against  vandalism. 
There  is,  in  the  flat,  a  small  living  room,  a  dining  room,  a  kitchen, 
and  two  bedrooms.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Sweets  feci  that  they 
are,  so  to  speak,  camping  there,  it  is  quite  pleasant.  Naturally,  with 
her  own  pretty  house  waiting,  Gladys  can't  feel  exactly  enthusiastic 
about  this  little  temporary  home.  There  is  no  place  there  for  her 
baby  to  play  unless  she  takes  her  down  two  flights  to  the  very  un¬ 
attractive  street  (a  street  which  like  most  of  those  in  foreign  and 
colored  quarters  is  none  too  carefully  looked  after  by  the  city  fathers). 
And  although  their  windows  face  west  and  there  is  plenty  of  sunshine- 
in  the  afternoon  so  that  the  rooms  are  by  no  means  gloomy,  it  is  try¬ 
ing  to  think  of  .the  pleasant  quarters  and  nice  little  yard,  which  must 
remain  unused. 

I  liked  the  easy  way  in  which  Gladys  accepted  my  presence  that 
first  evening.  She  made  me  feel  entirely  welcome,  and  quite  obviously 
was  not — as  so  many  women  would  have  been — in  the  least  discon¬ 
certed  by  two  unexpected  guests.  And  when  presently  John  Latting, 
Henry’s  friend,  arrived  from  Wilberforce,  she  asked  him  just  -as  easily 
if  he  too  would  stay  for  dinner.  He  accepted  and  when  presently  still 
another  young  chap  came  in,  she  invited  him  also.  lie  was,  I  learned, 
also  a  Wilberforce  boy,  but  this  year  he  is  working.  Next  year,  he 
'  will  go  again  to  college.  That  is  his  method — work  a  year,  go  to  col- 
j  lege  a  year,  work,  college,  and  so  on.  Quite  as  a  matter  of  fact  he 
expects  to  take  eight  instead  of  four  years  for  his  education.  She 
put  the  three  young  men  to  making  ice  cream,  and  chatted  along  easily 
and  interestingly  as  she  worked.  Just  before  dinner  was  ready,  she 
went  into  the  bedroom  and  returned  in  a  lovely  dress  of  pompeian 
red.  It  made  her  look  exotic. 

With  nice  dignity  she  seated  us  at  the  table  and  took  her  place 
i  at  its  head  until  Dr.  Sweet  should  arrive,  which  he  did  very  shortly. 

1  Then  Gladys  arose  at  once  and  sat  at  the  opposite  end.  What  kind 
of  a  table  did  they  have?  Exactly  such  a  table  as  the  big  majority 
.  of  you  have  in  your  own  homes.  Everything  at  the  Sweets  is  pleas¬ 
ant  and  well  ordered,  but  there  is  not  the  slightest  effort  to  be  pre- 
i  tentious.  At  dinner  the  tablecloth  and  napkins  are  fresh  and  snowy 
white.  For  lunch,  Gladys  uses  the  blue  Japanese  cloth  that  at  present 
is  so  popular.  The  dishes  are  pretty  but  not  exceptional.  The  Doctor 
himself  served  the  meat  and  the  vegetables,  which  were  placed  beside 


41 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


him  at  the  beginning  of  the  meal.  They  are  good  substantial  folk. 
There  were  ..eight  of  us  at  the  table,  including  little  Iva,  who  sat  in 
a  high  chair  by  her  father.  She  was,  I  thought,  a  remarkably  well- 
behaved  baby.  In  due  time,  Gladys  cleared  the  table,  and  brought  in 
dessert — the  ice  cream  the  young  men  had  made  and  the  cake  she  had 
baked  as  she  talked  with  me.  It  was,  I  can  assure  you,  a  delicious 
dinner.  I  enjoyed  it  and  enjoyed  even  more  my  host  and  hostess. 
You  may  take  my  word  for  it,  my  friends,  that  the  Sweets  are  thor¬ 
oughly  likeable,  charming  people. 


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Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


45 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  DEFENSE  OF  A  NEGRO 


By  Marcet  Haldeman-Julius 


>1N  the  twelfth  day  of  July,  1925,  the  Detroit  Free  Press  carried 
on  its  front  page  two  big-headlined  columns.  One  related  de- 
ta^s  the  brilliant  and  now  world-famous  battle  which  Clar- 
*^**aJ“  ence  Darrow  was  then  waging  with  the  bigoted  Fundamentalists 
of  Tennessee.  The  other,  by  a  dramatic  coincidence,  chronicled  the  very 
events  which  were  soon  to  bring  him  to  Detroit.  It  told  of  recent  race 
riots  there;  of  a  gathering  at  which  10,000  people  had  been  addressed 
by  a  man  who,  “standing,”  so  that  second  article  ran,  “on  a  platform 
illuminated  with  the  red  glare  of  fiery  crosses,  advocated  a  law  to 
compel  Negroes  to  live  only  in  certain  quarters  of  the  city.”  It  printed 
in  full  the  statement  of  the  Mayor  of  Detroit  (a  solemn  warning  to 
the  people  of  that  city  to  stop  rioting)  and  ended  with  the  announce¬ 
ment  that  a  meeting  would  be  held  in  the  Howe  School  (at  the  corner 
of  Garland  and  Charlevoix)  which  all -people  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Waterworks  Park  had  been  urged  to  attend  “in  self-defense.”  (The 
quotation  marks  are  the  newspaper’s.)  It  was  this  meeting  (diag¬ 
onally  across  from  Dr.  Sweet’s  recently  purchased  pretty  brick  home) 
that  precipitated  all  that  followed  and  plunged  Clarence  Darrow  into 
a  fight  quite  as  far-reaching  and  important  as  the  one  in  Dayton. 

For  at  this  meeting,  attended  by  some  six  or  seven  hundred  people, 
a  so-called  Improvement  Association  was  organized.  (How  I  wish  you 
could  have  heard  Darrow  tear  from  equivocating  state’s  witnesses  the 
reluctant  confession  that  its  real  object  was  to  drive  out  the  Sweets!) 
Two  months  later  its  members  and  adherents  formed  the  nucleus  of 
the  mob  which,  on  September  eighth  and  ninth,  assailed  Dr.  Sweet’s 
household.  During  the  riot,  Leon  Breiner — one  of  the  hostile  crowd — 
was  shot  and  killed.  Immediately  all  of  the  eleven  people  in  the  house 
were  charged  with  murder.  In  defending  the  attacked  group  of  people 
Darrow  took  up  the  cudgels  for  all  unjustly  persecuted  Negroes.  (There 
were  times  in  this  trial,  just  concluded,  when  Henry  Sweet  sat  almost 
as  much  forgotten  in  the  larger  issues  involved  as  was  Scopes  in  those 
of  the  evolution  trial.)  For  to  everyone  in  that  tense  courtroom  packed 
full  of  people — from  the  jury  itself  to  the  humblest  spectator — Clarence 
Darrow  brought  home  the  realization  that  to  convict  this  steady,  con¬ 
scientious  young  colored  man  simply  because  he  had  done  his  share 
in  defending  his  brother’s  home  and  the  lives  of  the  little  group  within 
it,  would  be — to  quote  Darrow’s  own  majestic  words — -'“to  make  an 
attack  upon  the  Constitution  itself  and  to  become  like  blind  Samson 
in  the  temple  seeking  to  tear  down  the  very  pillars  that  protect  us  all.” 

IN  THE  COURTROOM 

Picture  to  yourselves  an  impressively  simple,  gray  and  ivory  room 
some  sixty  feet  long  and  fifty  feet  wide.  Marble-floored  and  mar- 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


imi 

•  ■  • 

■  . 


i \  v  . . : . -l.  . . .V. 


Dr.  Ossian  H.  Sweet ,  Whose  Home  Was  Attacked  by  a  White  Mob 

in  Detroit. 


Marcel  Haldeman- Julius 


47 


Gladys  Sivcct,  Who,  With  Her  Husband,  Dr.  Ossian  H.  Sweet,  Was 
the  Victim  of  Race  Hatred  in  Detroit. 


48 


Clarence  Darrow’ s  Two  Great  Trials 


ble-wainscoted,  mahogany-furnished  and  well  hut  softly  lighted  by  three 
large  shaded  windows,  it  is  divided  straight  across  its  width  into  un¬ 
equal  parts,  the  smaller  of  which  is  for  spectators.  The  larger  por¬ 
tion  is  the  well  of  the  court.  In  it,  at  the  far  end  of  the  room  on  a 
raised  platform,  facing  the  spectators,  is  the  judge’s  long  bench  and 
inset  into  one  end  of  that  is  the  witness  box  in  which  some  sixty-odd 
men  and  women  grimly,  cautiously,  and  deliberately  misrepresented  the 
truth.  Just  below  the  judge,  their  backs  to  him,  the  clerk  of  the  court 
and  one  of  the  four  officers  who  helped  to  maintain  order  sat  at  a  long 
desk.  To  their  right;  and  left  were  small  tables — the  one  for  an  extra 
officer  upon  occasion,  the  other,  just  in  front  of  the  witness  box,  for 
the  court  stenographer 

Along  the  wall,  to  the  spectators’  left,  was  the  prisoner’s  bench. 
During  the  first  trial  this  was  occupied  by  Henry  and  the  other  nine 
men  who  were  his  co-defendants.  (Gladys  Sweet  was  out  on  bond.) 
At  the  end  of  the  trial,  when  the  jury  disagreed,  Judge  Murphy  had 
the  courage  to  admit  them  all  to  bail.  Having  failed  to  get  a  con¬ 
viction  when  he  tried  the  eleven,  including  Mrs.  Sweet,  all  together, 
Prosecutor  Toms  determined  to  pursue  another  method  and  try  each 
singly.  As  Henry  had  admitted  both  that  he  had  been  armed  with  a 
rifle  and  that  he  had  shot  it  (none  of  the  others  had  confessed  to  fir¬ 
ing),  he  was  the  logical  one  to  be  selected  first. 

Against  the  south  wall  were  the  double  rows  of  jury  chairs.  In 
the  very  center  of  the  enclosure  were  two  long  tables.  The  one  was 
for  representatives  (colored  and  white)'  of  the  press;  the  second,  with 
only  the  stenographer  between  it  and  the  witness  box,  was  for  counsel. 
At  it  sat  eight  men.  On  the  side  next  to  the  jury  were  Robert  M. 
Toms,  prosecuting  attorney  for  Wayne  County,  his  assistant,  Lester 
S.  Moll,  and  Lieutenants  Johnson  and  Lloffman,  the  two  detectives  of 
the  homicide  squad  who,  summoned  immediately  after  the  Sweets  were 
taken  to  Police  Pleadquarters,  helped  the  prosecutor  secure  all  his  evi¬ 
dence  and  develop  the  case  against  them.  On  the  other  side  were  Julian 
Perry  (the  one  colored  lawyer  retained  for  this  second  trial),  Henry 
himself,  Thomas  F.  Chawke,  and  Clarence  Darrow. 

Robert  M.  Toms  is  a  tall,  pleasant  and  round-faced,  blue-eyed, 
fair-haired,  affable  man  about  forty  who  makes  friends  easily  and 
wants  all  people  to  like  him.  His  manner  toward  Darrow,  whom  he 
warmly  admires,  was  courteous,  even  deferential.  Darrow,  always  in¬ 
clined  to  be  paternal  and  friendly  in  his  attitude  toward  younger  men, 
especially  toward  those  whose  minds  seem  to  be  partially  open,  con¬ 
sistently  alluded  to  him  as  “a  nice  fellow.”  It  was  a  phrase  into  which 
he  fitted  snugly  and  one  frequently  applied  to  him. 

Yet  it  is  a  fact,  not  to  be  ignored,  that  although  during  the  last 
twenty-two  months  fifty-five  Negroes  in  Detroit  (some  of  them  taken 
on  the  flimsiest  suspicion)  have  been  murdered  in  cold  blood  by  arrest¬ 
ing  officers  (and  this  in  a  state  which  does  not  believe  in  capital  pun¬ 
ishment)  not  one  of  these  policemen  has  had  to  face  trial.  (One  poor 
creature,  Sims,  was  shot  while  complying  with  the  officer’s  demand 
that  he  raise  his  hands!)  And  had  the  Sweets  been  white  instead  of 
colored,  and  their  persecutors  Negroes,  it  is  not  likely  that  Toms  ever 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


49 


would  have  permitted  the  attacked  group  to  be  indicted.  Moreover, 
everyone  alleges  that  if  he  does  not  actually  belong  to  the  Klan  he  is 
entirely  in  sympathy  with  it.  Certain  it  is,  that  during  the  last  six 
months  he  has  appointed  three  assistants  of  whom  two  (one  of  them 
a  son  of  the  local  Cyclops)  belongs  to  the  order.  And  while  he  does 
not  fail  to  emphasize  that  he  also  has  appointed  one  Negro  assistant, 
this  man  was  at  once  put  on  the  assignment  desk  and  has  never  plead 
a  case  in  court.  A  pleasant,  kindly,  gregarious,  ambitious,  but  not  un¬ 
duly  strong  character,  is  Toms;  in  short,  an  A  No.  1  second-rater. 

Lester  S.  Moll  has  been  in  the  prosecutor’s  office  as  an  assistant 
for  some  years.  Tall,  very  dark,  good  looking,  arrogant,  he  is  inclined, 
in  court  at  least,  to  be  somewhat  surly  and  belligerent  in  manner.  For 
reasons  which  I  was  not  able  to  ascertain  he  showed  in  many  unmis¬ 
takable  ways  that  he  felt  himself  vastly  superior  to  Negroes.  Quite 
obviously  he  entertained  for  Dr.  Sweet  (whom  he  slurringly  referred 
to  as  “quasi-intelligent”)  a  definite,  although  by  no  means  vindictive, 
personal  dislike.  It  is  a  dislike  which  the  colored  people  of  Detroit 
thoroughly  reciprocate.  (I  didn’t  hear  a  single  Negro  say  a  good  word 
for  Moll.)  Tight-minded  is  the  word  that  most  accurately  describes 
:iim.  He  belongs  to  the  vast  army  of  those  who  “have  nothing  against 
Negroes  but  believe  that  they  should  keep  in  their  place” — which  rub- 
Derstamp  should  immediately  enable  you  to  comprehend  his  entire  at¬ 
titude.  Not  a  mean  man,  mind  you,  nor  a  cruel  one,  nor  one  to  take 
m  unfair  advantage.  On  the  contrary.  But  he  is  saturated  with  deep 
prejudices  and  quite  convinced  that  had  the  Sweets  not  “shot  too  soon” 
he  officers  could,  and  would,  have  protected  them.  On  the  whole,  I 
cally  think  the  case  to  him  was  chiefly  one  of  routine  business. 

Lieutenant  Johnson,  even  taller  than  Moll,  who  is  taller  than 
Ihawke,  who  is  taller  than  Darrow,  who  is  a  tall  man,  is  very  blond 
md  a  true  Nordic  both  in  appearance  and  in  temperament.  Lie  and 
Toff  man  were  the  High  Keepers  of  all  the  photographs,  guns,  bullets, 
■ocks,  and  records  in  the  case.  It  was  Johnson  who  very  kindly  took 
ny  little  daughter  Alice  and  myself  through  the  Sweets’  pretty,  roomy 
louse  which,  you  must  know,  has  been  padlocked  ever  since  the  tragic 
light  of  the  ninth  of  September.  (But  although  unable  to  occupy  it 
md  therefore  forced  to  rent  an  apartment,  Dr.  Sweet  has,  with  inf i- 
lite  confidence  in  Darrow  and  ultimate  justice,  continued  to  make  the 
nonthly  payments  of  $150  and  the  two  semi-annual  ones  of  $500  called 
’or  by  his  contract  with  the  man  from  whom  he  purchased  the  prop- 
:rty.) 

“What’re  they,  goin’  to  do  with  this  place?”  the  officer  on  guard 
isked  us. 

“I  suppose  the  Sweets  will  live  in  it  when  they  are  all  acquitted, 
lon’t  you?”  I  suggested  mildly.  The  look  he  gave  me  was  droll  in  its 
itter  incredulity. 

Lieutenant  Johnson  only  smiled  in  a  non-committal,  genial  sort  of 
vay — I  found  him  a  likable  sort — and  pointed  to  the  telephone.  “There 
t  was,”  he  explained  to  me,  “all  connected  up  on  the  night  of  -the 
hooting.  Now,  if  they  were  as  frightened  as  they  claim  to  have  been, 
vhy  didn’t  they  call  up  Headquarters  and  ask  for  more  protection  ?” 

More  protection,  indeed !  When  there  were  already  eight  policemen 


50 


Clarence  Darrow’ s  Tivo  Great  Trials 


and  three  officers  outside,  not  one  of  whom  was  stirring  a  finger  to 
disperse  the  steadily  gathering  crowd !  A  crowd  which,  by  the  way, 
the  prosecution  tried  valiantly,  but  in  vain,  to  convince  the  jury  never 
existed. . 


Julian  Perry,  Henry’s  friend  and  lawyer,  is  a  light  mulatto.  (I 
wish  I  had  the  space  to  tell  you  of  his  quaintly  charming  wife,  Pru¬ 
dence,  whose  name  just  fits  her.  A  graduate  of  Ann  Arbor,  she  teaches 
colored  and  foreign  children  in  the  Detroit  public  schools.)  Air.  Perry 
hails  from  North  Carolina.  In  1915  he  graduated  from  Howard  Uni¬ 
versity  and  was  admitted  first  to  the  District  of  Columbia  bar  and, 
later  settling  in  Detroit,  to  the  Michigan  bar.  He  is  a  lively  execu¬ 
tive  type  of  man  with  a  natural  interest  in  affairs.  Politics  is  his 
avocation  and  he  has  run  for  the  Republican  nomination  for  State 
legislature.  “Not  that  I  expected  to  get  it,”  he  added  with  a  quite 
engaging  frankness,  “but  I  thought  it  would  set  our  people  to  think¬ 
ing.”  Much  of  the  grind  of  the  trial  fell  to  Perry’s  share.  He  was 
always  on  the  job,  attending  to  innumerable  details.  But  because  of 
the  particular  nature  of  the  case  and  the  fear  that  he  might  antagonize 
the  jury  he  did  no  pleading.  That  was  left  entirely  to  Chawke  and 
Harrow. 


Thomas  F. 
troit  courtroom  as  if  I 


Chawke  is  a  big  man. 


(Positively  I  felt  in  that  De- 
had  arrived  suddenly  in  a 


land  of  giants!) 


Well  proportioned,  with  a  splendid,  rather  long  and  always  sleek  dark 


head,  he  has  keen,  clear  gray-blue  eyes  which  swiftly  and  surely  ap¬ 


praise  every  witness.  As  watchful  of  details  as  Arthur  Garfield  Hays, 
lie  has,  it  seems  to  me,  considerably  more  fire.  He  showed  witness 
after  witness  for  the  prosecution  to  be  lying.  There  was  a  cannon¬ 
ading  force  in  the  way  he  flung  out  man)'  of  his  battering  questions. 
One  could  quite  believe  the  often  heard  statement  that  he  was  “the 
best  criminal  lawyer  in  Michigan.”  And  while  one  could  not  call  him 
exactly  a  social-minded  man,  he  certainly  has  the  capacity  to  identify 
himself  to  a  rare  degree  with  his  clients.  Like  Darrow  he  gives  them 
not  only  his  best  services  but  also  his  entire  sympathy  and  under¬ 
standing.  Thus  it  fell  out  that,  while  he  never  has  been  a  particulai 
champion  of  Negroes  and  (I  feel  quite  sure)  this  case  was  to  him  al 
the  beginning  simply  a  plain  murder  case  into  which  he  entered  ir 
much  the  same  spirit  that  he  had  entered  dozens  of  other  interesting 
lawsuits,  he  became,  once  he  got  into  it,  more  and  more  deeply  inter¬ 
ested  in  all  its  implications ;  more  and  more  concerned  for  the  issue; 
involved  in  it.  Plis  final  summing  up  was  both  brilliant  and  dramatic 
Listening  to  him  one  felt  as  if  marching  to  the  martial  music  of  c 
band.  Plis  vigor,  his  activity  (he  takes  stage  freely,  moves  about  i 
great  deal,  always  stands  when  he  is  cross-examining  and  speaks  in  i 
full,  strong,  ringing  voice)  brought  out  in  sharp  contrast,  enhancing 
it,  the  quietness  and  extreme  simplicity  of  Darrow’s  own  more  subth 
method.  The  very  headlongness  of  Chawke’s  vitality  emphasized  al 
the  ripe  repose  of  the  older  man.  They  made — as  results  were  to  prow 
— a  glorious  and  invincible  team. 

But  always  the  dominating  figure,  throughout  the  entire  trial,  wa 
Clarence  Darrow.  Tail,  rugged,  with  broad,  slightly  stooped  shoulder 


/n 


Marcet  H aid eman- Julius 


51 


;here  is  about  him  the  quality  of  a  great,  majestic  ship,  or  some  mighty 
)ak,  that  has  weathered  many  a  storm.  I  know  of  no  one  else  in  whose 
face  are  so  blended  ironical  wisdom,  warm  kindliness  and  austere 
strength.  His  is  a  magnificent  forehead  that  proclaims  a  mind  com¬ 
pact  with  thought,  the  aggressive  nose  of  a  fighter,  the  deep-set  blue 
;yes  of  a  man  born  to  dream  greatly,  the  firm  square  chin  of  one 
:enacious  of  his  convictions.  Together  they  have  made  inevitable  the 
ines  which  are  the  scars  of  his  many  long,  successful  battles.  Never 
ras  Clarence  Darrow  prosecuted  a  man  for  murder.  Never  has  a  man 
le fended  by  him  been  hanged.  He  is  a  born  protector  of  the  misun- 
lerstood,  the  persecuted,  and  the  oppressed.  There  are  moments  when 
lis  rvhole  combative  face  fills  with  beautiful  benignity. 

In  Detroit  he  was  in  more  formal  mood  than  when  at  Dayton, 
hhe  fa'mous  galluses  were  safely  hidden  under  well-pressed  vest  and 
■oat.  No  one  caught  even  so  much  as  a  hint  of  them.  Almost  in¬ 
variably  his  gray  hair  was  neatly  brushed.  I  never  before  saw  him 
ook  quite  so  trim.  He  .was  rasped  and  ruffled  by  the  persistent  quib¬ 
bling  prevarications  of  prosecution  witnesses — and  worried  constantly 
|>y  the  consciousness  that  however  brilliantly  he  might  plead  for  Henry 
here  lay  ever  between  that  young  man  and  his  liberty  the  unalterable 
act  of  his  color,  but  through  it  all  he  contrived  to  remain  his  own 
[rruff,  good-humored  self.  I  was  not  the  only  one  who-  marveled  at  his 
latience.  To  a  comment  on  his  ability  to  sit  on  the  sidelines  and 
augh  he  returned.  “A  man  would  go  crazy  if  he  didn’t.”  The  day 
>n  which  he  made  his  final  argument,  he  spoke  for  seven  solid  hours ! 
There  was  literally  not  a  spare  inch  in  the  courtroom.  Chairs  were 
arried  into  the  court  enclosure  and  then  still  more  chairs  were  brought. 
Except  for  their  elevation,  it  was  hard  to  tell  where  the  jury  began 
nd  ended.  People  all  but  swarmed  up  to  the  judge’s  bench.  Every- 
ine  who  could  get  in  was  determined  “to  hear  Darrow.”  And  what 
plea  it  was!  It  lifted  all  who  heard  it  to  his  own  high  peak  of 
ision.  By  its  flaming  earnestness  it  tore  our  hearts. 

Meanwhile,  every  day  the  courtroom  was  full.  At  the  afternoon 
essions  the  spectators’  section  often  was  tightly  packed.  There  were, 
ou  see,  just  two  rows  of  four  long  benches,  each  of  which  accommo- 
ated  eight.  Within  the  court  enclosure  there  were  three  more  of  the 
;ame  length.  Chairs  seated  about  ten,  so  that  only  one  hundred  or  so 
Duld  be  comfortable.  All  the  rest  of  the  three  to-ijye  hundred  people 
lat  could  be  squeezed  in  stood.  Others  were  turned  away. 

At  least  two-thirds  of  the  spectators  were  Negroes.  From  folk 
0  dark  that  one  could  scarcely  tell  where  the  skin  ended  and  black 
inky  hair  began,  they  ranged  in  color  through  every  shade  of  brown, 
hampagne,  and  ivory  to  fair-haired  blue-eved  people  with  skins  of 
earl  in  whom  their  race  was  imperceptible.  If  I  had  not  been  told 
ie  truth  I  can  assure  you  that  I  never  should  have  guessed  it.  The 
ariety  in  type  was  quite  as  striking.  There  were  toil-bent  people  and 
iccessful-looking  business  men ;  artists  stamped  with  modernity,  and 
wistful,  wrinkled  little  woman  whom  Judge  Murphy  thoughtfully  de- 
•eed  always  should  be  admitted  and  safely  seated.  But  however  they 
[tried,  those  faces  in  the  spectators’  section,  there  was  in  them  all 
ie  same  vigilant  anxiety.  Patient  in  their  suspense,  all  hung  on  Dar- 

mm 


52 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


row’s  every  word  and  marked  well  Judge  Murphy’s  every  ruling.  Only 
occasionally  allowing  themselves  a  low  contemptuous  laugh  at  some 
too  flagrant  prevarication  or  an  approving  murmur  at  a  quick  and 
just  retort,  they  listened  for  the  most  part  silently,  scarcely  seeming 
to  move  through  the  long  days  as  minutes  spun  into  hours  while  one 
race  sat  in  judgment  upon  another.  They  knew  only  too  well,  those 
intent  colored  folk,  that  the  real  question  being  fought  out  there  was  not 
one  of  whether  or  not  the  Sweets  had  been  justified  in  shooting.  No 
disinterested  person  could  doubt  it.  The  question  was  one  which  went 
to  the  very  roots  of  the  Negro’s  future  in  this  country.  Was  or  was 
not  a  colored  man  a  citizen  with  a  citizen’s  rights? 

Inside  the  enclosure  were  Negroes  whose  achievements  have  won 
them  national  recognition.  There  was  the  towering  portly  figure  of 
Dr.  Joseph  L.  Johnson  (he  is  six  feet  one),  United  States  minister  to 
Liberia  during  the  trying  and  troublesome  years  of  the  World  War  and 
the  last  man  appointed  by  Wilson  to  be  called  home  by  Harding ;  reti¬ 
cent  James  Weldon  Johnson,  the  poet,  whose  fine  bearing  makes  him 
a  distinguished  figure  in  any  assemblage;  delightful,  brown-haired,! 
gray-eyed  Walter  White,  the  novelist,  who  mingles,  equally  welcomed 
by  both,  with  white  and  colored  folk.  Others,  not  colored,  came  and 
went.  We  often  saw  Ann  Harding  (best  known  for  her  fine  work  in 
Tarnish,  now  in  Detroit  for  a  season  of  summer  stock),  flaxen-haired 
and  cameo-faced,  a  wind  flower  among  pines.  Sometimes  she  was  ac¬ 
companied  by  Rollo  Peters,  undoubtedly  one  of  the  best  of  our  younger 
actors.  When  Jeanne  Eagles  arrived  in  town  with  Rain,  she  too  came 
to  court.  The  whole  splendid  spirit  of  her  glowed  in  her  eyes  as  she 
listened,'  intent  and  deeply  sympathetic.  With  her  and  Mrs.  Darrow 
was  Anita  Loos,  in  Detroit  for  a  week  while  she  whipped  into  shape 
the  newest  comedy  by  John  Emerson  and  herself,  Gentlemen  Prefer 
Blondes.  And  I  shall  never  forget  Charles  Edward  Russell.  As  Mr. 
Toms  was  trying,  in  vain,  to  confuse  Edna  Butler,  a  young  colored! 
woman,  Mr.  Russell  (who  happened  to  be  sitting  next  to  me)  whispered,' 
a  flash  of  scorn  in  his  fine  expressive  face,  “I’d  rather  be  a  collector 
of  garbage  than  a  lawyer.  It’s  the  lowest  occupation  known  to  man.”: 
At  least  once  a  week  there  were  both  white  and  Negro  students  from 
Ann  Arbor.  Mrs.  Louis  Gomon,  secretary  of  the  Rationalist  Society 
in  Detroit,  scarcely  missed  a  session.  Nor  did  Mrs.  William  M.  Mc- 
Graw,  always  to  he  found  in  the  vanguard  of  every  fight  for  justice.; 
Indeed,  the  list  of  broadminded  Detroit  people  who  attended  the  triai- 
is  a  long  one.  Many  of  them  conventional  and  conservative,  interestec 
at  first  only  because  of  Mr.  Darrow’s  connection  with  it,  said  frankly 
that  it  all  had  been  to  them  an  education — never  again  would  they 
have  their  old  indifferent,  uninformed  attitude  toward  Negroes. 

But  in  spite  of  the  intensity  of  feeling  which  often  stirred  thd 
people  in  the  courtroom  (and  make  no  mistake  about  it,  the  tensior 
often  held  one  breathless),  few  cases  of  such  importance  have  beer 
tried  more  quietly.  There  never  was  any  rude  jangling  between  law¬ 
yers,  never  any  noisy  demonstrations  from  the  spectators,  never  any-; 
thing  but  courtesy  from  sergeants  keeping  order.  It  took  its  tone,  th< 
atmosphere  of  that  courtroom,  from  the  man  who  presided  over  it— 
Judge  Murphy. 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


53 


Frank  Murphy  was  elected  two  years  ago  on  a  non-partisan  ticket 
by  one  of  the  largest  majorities  ever  cast  for  a  judge  in  Detroit.  Re¬ 
cently  appointed  to  the  national  commission  for  the  study  of  crime  and 
its  correction,  he  is,  at  thirty-three,  the  youngest  jurist  in  a  court  of 
record  in  Michigan.  He  comes  from  a  long  line  of  Irish  idealists. 
His  father,  when  a  lad,  was  imprisoned  and  all  but  put  to  death  for  the 
cause  in  which  he  believed,  and  his  grandfather  lost  his  life  in  one  of 
the  Irish  revolutions.  The  judge’s  mother,  Irish  too,  a  woman  of  rare 
tact  and  feeling,  implanted  in  her  sons  her  own  tenderness  and  tolerance 
for  all  humanity.  Brought  up  in  the  little  town  of  Harbor  Beach, 
but  always  surrounded  by  people  of  broad  sympathies,  Murphy  was 
educated  in  turn  at  Ann  Arbor,  Harvard,  Lincoln’s  Inn  (London), 
and  Trinity  College  (Dublin),  where  he  was  an  open  sympathizer 
with  the  Sinn  Feiners.  A  week  after  this  country  entered  the  World 
War  he  enlisted  and  soon  became  a  captain.  Followed  the  inevita¬ 
ble  disillusionment.  While  still  abroad  he  was  appointed  chief  assis¬ 
tant  district  attorney  and  came  home  to  fill  that  office.  It  was  in 
this  capacity  (in  which  he  never  lost  a  case)  that  he  secured  the 
conviction  of  Grant  Hugh  Brown  and  his  associates  in  the  $30,000,000 
war  graft  in  which  they  were  involved.  Also,  he  has  been  a 
teacher  in  the  Law  College  of  Detroit.  It  is  an  open  secret  that  he 
turned  down  a  most  tempting  offer  as  counsel  for  one  of  the  largest 
motor  car  corporations  in  Detroit  in  order  to  accept  this  judgeship 
with  its  much  more  modest  salary  but  wider  opportunities. 

In  appearance  he  is  tall,  very  good  looking,  inclined  toward  slen¬ 
derness,  with  a  long  beautifully  modeled  head,  thick  curly  auburn  hair 
land  contemplative  blue  eyes.  Irish  eyes  they  are,  full  of  dreams.  For 
brilliant  as  his  rise  in  his  chosen  profession  has  been,  Frank  Murphy 
has  the  brooding,  imaginative  temperament  of  an  artist.  And  although 
his  excellent  features  and  splendid  physique  unquestionably  convey  an 
impression  of  strength,  it  is  none  the  less  of  his  finely  tempered  sensi¬ 
bility  that  one  is  most  conscious.  His  voice  is  so  low,  even  in  ordi¬ 
nary  conversation,  that  if  it  were  not  exceptionally  well  placed  it  some¬ 
times  would  be  difficult  to  hear  him.  In  the  midst  of  the  most  strained 
arguments  between  counsel  he  scarcely  raised  it.  Yet  every  word  he 
spoke  carried  to  the  farthest  corner  of  the  crowded  courtroom.  And 
I  was  told  by  more  than  one  person  that  when  he  addressed  an  audi- 
lence  of  7,000  people  he  could  be  heard  just  as  distinctly.  He  has  both 
quality  and  presence.  Dignity  is  an  integral  part  oDhis  nature  and 
upon  occasion  he  can  be  stern  enough,  but  his  most  usual  mood  is  one 
of  tranquil  thoughtfulness.  When  he  smiles  his  face  has  the  sparkle 
of  a  quiet  river  in  the  sunlight. 

Almost  the  first  question  he  asked  me  when  I  met  him  was  if  I 
knew  where  he  could  get  a  copy  of  the  British  Labor  Party’s  platform, 
And  as  he  discussed  the  new  Alien  Registration  bill  now  before  Con¬ 
gress,  and  commented  upon  the  opportunities  it  offered  for  further  en¬ 
croachment  upon  the  personal  liberties  of  an  already  oppressed  group 
in  our  country,  his  tone  was  packed  with  smoldering  indignation.  By 
temperament  and  training  his  resentment  of  intolerance  is  both  deep 
md  spontaneous.  Moreover  he  has,  this  young  judge,  real  courage. 
Daily  fte  received  letters  upbraiding  him  for  his  open-minded  attitude 


54 


Clarence  Dar row’s  Two  Great  Trials 


in  this  trial,  warning  him  of  what  it  might  do  to  his  political  future, 
but  imperturbably  he  ignored  them.  It  is  significant  that  never  was 
any  question  raised  as  to  the  soundness  of  his  rulings.  His  fairness 
was  unimpeachable.  It  was  a  common  occurrence  to  see  all  four  men — 
Harrow,  Chawke,  Toms  and  Moll — nod  their  heads  as  he  stated  why 
a  motion  was  “denied,”  “objection  sustained,”  or  counsel  might  “have  an 
answer.” 

And  although  it  must  surely  have  cost  him  an  effort  to  do  so,  both 
in  the  first  and  second  trial,  he  denied  the  defense’s  motion  for  a 
directed  verdict.  He  is,  in  short,  a  great-hearted,  able  man  of  rare  un¬ 
derstanding.  Few  people  in  Detroit  are  held  in  more  affectionate  es- 
teem  by  all  sorts  and  classes.  Next  to  Darrow  he  was  easily  the  most 
forceful  and  interesting  character  in  the  courtroom. 

THE  TRIAL 

The  trial  of  Henry  Sweet  opened  on  April  19,  and  one  hundred 
and  sixty-five  men  were  summoned  and  dismissed  (only  twenty  of  them 
peremptorily)  before  Darrow  was  satisfied  that  he  had  selected  twelve 
who  were  at  least  comparatively  free  from  active  prejudice  against 
Negroes.  The  process  took  one  solid  week.  With  infinite  patience 
and  insight  he  studied  and  sifted  them. 

“Well,”  he  would  say,  “you’ve  heard  of  this  case,  I  suppose?” 
(He  practically  always  questioned  jurors  and  most  witnesses  sitting, 
and  in  a  very  colloquial  not  to  .say  intimate  tone.)  “Read  about  it? 
Talked  about  it?  Formed  an  opinion?  Got  it  yet?  And  it  would 
take  evidence  to  change  it?  Well,  I  s’pose  you’re  right.  Challenge 
for  cause.” 

By  his  mere  assumption  that  a  man  would  give  him  only  honesty, 
Darrow  often  called  forth  that  very  quality.  Fie  would  say:  “Ever 
had  any  association  with  any  colored  people?  No?  Understand,  Dr. 
Sweet’s  a  colored  man — -bought  a  house  in  a  neighborhood  where  there 
were  no  colored  people.  Well,  that’s  the  background.  My  client,  is  a 
colored  man.  Fie  was  in  the  house  at  the  time  of  the  shooting.  One  of 
eleven.  Now  you  wouldn’t  want  not  to  be  fair.  You  just  tell  me 
yourself  whether  any  views  you  have  or  surroundings  you  have  would 
handicap  my  client  or  the  state.”  And  very  often  the  man  would  do 
that  very  little  thing — just  for  Mr.  Darrow.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
sometimes  the  probing  was  as  searching  as  if  he  were  cross-examin-: 
ing  a  witness.  This  was  when — as  happened  more  than  once — a  preju¬ 
diced  man  was  deliberately  trying  to  sit  on  the  panel.  He  was  patient 
too  with  those  who,  unwilling  to  spare  the  time,  said  instantly  that  they 
had  already  formed  an  opinion  which  it  would  take  evidence  to  change 
“I  don’t  want  to  coax  you,”  he’d  say,  reluctant  to  accept  what  was  evi¬ 
dently  a  subterfuge.  “If  you  feel  that  way  we’ll  have  to  excuse  you' 
Challenge  for  cause.”  And  all  the  time  he  was  quietly  but  surely,  b) 
his  very  questions,  educating  those  already  selected.  (Judge  Murphj 
gave  both  state  and  defense  to  understand  that  there  was  no  need  t( 
hurry.  Flaste  is  unknown  in  that  courtroom.)  At  last,  on  Saturday 
the  twelve  were  chosen,  sworn  in  and  locked  up.  JThey  had  pleasan  t 
quarters  in  that  very  building. 

— 


Marcel  Haldeman- Julius 


55 


Beginning  with  the  back  row,  from  right  10  left,  they  were : 
diaries  Thorne,  steamship  steward  retired  after  fifty  years  of  service 
,'ith  the  Detroit  and  Cleveland  Navigation  Company,  eighty-two,  white- 
aired,  white-mustached,  dignified;  William  B.  Brunswick,  locomotive 
ngineer  for  the  Michigan  Central  Railroad,  a  middle-aged  man,  clear- 
yed,  heavy  of  build  and  of  face,  who  looked  as  if  he  would  have  “to 
e  shown” ;  Edward  W.  Bernie,  a  pleasant  young  pharmacist  of  twenty- 
our  who  got  quite  a  kick  out  of  this  first  experience  of  his  as  a 
uror,  typical  young  America  as  you  find  him  today  in  hundreds  of 
orner  drugstores;  John  M.  Allen,  a  machinist,  short,  spare,  partly 
aid  and  thin-lipped,  with  keen  rather  peering  blue  eyes  that  looked 
lirough  large  glasses,  a  meticulous  sort  of  person;  James  S.  Spencer, 
n  electrician,  dark,  quiet,  middle-aged,  whose  expression  was  consis- 
sntly  skeptical ;  Charles  Phillips,  an  electroplater,  mobile  of  face,  kindly, 
rematurely  gray.  Mr.  Phillips  and  Mr.  Thorne  sat,  one  on  each  side  of 
be  back  row,  two  white-capped  pillars,  the  little  thin-lipped  man  was 
oticeable  between  the  tall,  dark  younger  ones,  while  the  heavy  en- 
ineer  stood  out  in  sharp  contrast  to  all  the  others  in  the  row. 

The  tops  of  the  heads  of  the  second  line  of  jurors  were  practically 
n  a  level  with  the  chins  of  the  first  six  men.  Again  from  right  to  left 
:t  me  introduce:  Charles  L.  Dann,  the  capable  looking  district  man¬ 
ger  of  the  C.  F.  Smith  Grocery  stores,  decidedly  one  of  the  strong- 
st  characters  in  the  group ;  Ralph  Fuelling,  eleven  years  in  the  regu- 
ir  army,  now  a  water  board  employe,  who  nodded  and  dozed  much  of 
le  time  the  witnesses  were  testifying  (“No.  8  is  asleep  again,”  was 
whispered  comment  often  heard),  but  wide-awake  enough  to  suit  any- 
ne  during  the  final  arguments;  George  C.  Small,  whom  not  a  word 
pr  expression  escaped,  young,  alert,  well-groomed,  dark-haired,  pleas- 
nt-faced,  the  Detroit  manager  of  the  Cunard  Anchor  Lines,  later 
) reman  of  the  jury;  Richard  Adams,  a  retired  lumberman  whose 
ray  eyes  looked  as  if  they  were  just  going  to  twinkle  but  never  quite 
d,  a  shrewd  old  gentleman,  at  peace  with  life,  entertained  by  it; 
Villiam  John  Simpson,  an  electrical  engineer  and  contractor,  bald  ex- 
■■pt  for  the  lower  part  of  his  head,  long-nosed,  with  cool  and  calculat- 
g  eyes  that  never  warmed  nor  smiled;  Lewis  J.  Sutton,  the  gentle- 
joking,  lovable,  old  watchman  at  the  Sacred  Heart  Seminary,  who 
■laintly  said  that  “all  his  life  he  had  tried  to  love  his  neighbor  as 
imself.” 

They  ranged,  you  see,  from  twenty-four  to  eighty-two.  Four  were 
shite-haired  and  beyond  sixty,  three  between  thirty-five  and  their  late 
[ftics.  Five  were  decidedly  young  men.  Tall  and  short,  thickset  and 
1  in,  mustached  and  clean-shaven,  their  physical  disparities  were  no 
Beater  than  their  mental  ones.  But  if  there  was  not  one  intellectual 
Kce  among  the  twelve  neither  was  there  a  stupid  one.  If  none  of 
Rem  seemed  especially  sensitive  or  fine-grained  neither  were  any  of 
Item  mean  or  callous.  The  fact  that  they  were  in  no  way  exceptional 
ji  t  apparently  just  straightforward,  average  men,  and  that,  being  pre- 
oely  this,  they  voted  for  Henry’s  acquittal,  should  make  you  realize 
ore  than  anything  else  how  brilliantly  and  convincingly  Clarence  Dar- 
iiw  plead  the  cause  of  the  Negro  he  was  defending. 


56 


Clarence  Darrow’ s  Two  Great  Trials 


The  prologue  over,  Toms  and  Darrow  made  their  opening  state¬ 
ments. 

The  state’s  theory  was  briefly:  that  either  Henry  Sweet  fired  the 
shot  which  killed  Leon  Breiner  or  that  he  aided  and  abetted  the  man 
who  did.  That  if  he  did  aid  and  abet  some  one  or  more  of  the  per¬ 
sons  in  the  house  who  caused  the  death  of  Breiner,  his  act  would  be 
their  act  and  their  act  would  be  his. 

They  stressed  the  facts  that  at  the  moment  Breiner  was  shot  he! 
stood  about  six  feet  from  the  Dove’s  steps  talking,  pipe  in  mouth,  to  a 
man  on  that  porch  and  that  the  bullet  which  killed  him  was  not  the 
only  one  fired.  One  went  through  the  eaves  of  the  Dove’s  house,  an¬ 
other  wounded  Houghberg  on  the  steps  of  the  porch,  two  others  passed 
through  the  steps,  one  embedded  itself  in  a  small  tree  on  the  lawn 
and  another  cut  through  the  glass  door  leading  up  to  the  second  floor 
flat  inside  the  house.  (Whether  or  not  all  these  bullets  came  from  the 
Sweets  is  another  question.  Policeman  Gill  insisted  that  he  fired  only 
one  shot,  but  in  view  of  all  the  tall  and  barefaced  lying  the  men  ol 
the  Detroit  police  force  did  throughout  the  trial,  it  is  asking  a  good 
deal  of  one’s  credulity  to  believe  him.)  Much  was  made  of  the  fact 
that  there  were  never,  either  on  Charlevoix  or  Garland,  many  peopk 
on  the  Sweet’s  side  of  those  streets ;  that  the  yard  was  untrampled 
the  hedge  unhurt  and  (as  Mr.  Toms,  waxing  a  bit  sentimental,  ex¬ 
claimed)  “even  the  rose  bush  was  left  blooming.”  Of  course  the  poini 
was  stressed  that  IToughberg  was  a  roomer  at  the  Dove’s  and  therefore 
so  to  speak,  on  his  own  porch.  He  himself  testified  later  that  he  wa: 
shaving  when  he  first  heard  the  shots  and  ran  down  stairs  to  see  wha 
was  going  on.  (Darrow  brought  out  that,  like  the  others,  he  didn’t  intern 
to  miss  the  show  which  he  knew  had  been  scheduled  for  that  evening.', 

Other  points  were  that,  when  Dr.  Sweet  moved,  he  took  with  hin 
a  substantial  supply  of  groceries  (which  he  did),  ten  guns  (two  rifles 
a  shot  gun,  seven  revolvers  and  pistols)  and  three  hundred  and  ninety 
one  rounds  of  ammunition ;  that  the  amount  of  furniture  taken  in  wa 
very  meager  (after  their  return  from  Europe,  where  Dr.  Sweet  ha< 
worked  under  Madame  Curie  in  Paris  and  attended  the  Eiselber 
Clinic  in  Vienna,  they  had  been  living  with  Mrs.  Sweet’s  parents)  ;  the 
precautionary  measures  had  been  taken  by  the  police  department  an 
an  extra  force  placed  around  the  Sweet  house. 

In  concluding,  Mr.  Toms  painted  a  quiet,  neighborly,  rather  thickl 
settled  modest  street  on  which  the  people  were  for  the  most  part  sit 
ting  contentedly  on  their  porches  discussing  the  warmth  of  the  peace 
fill  evening.  On  the  sidewalks  “a  few”  people  (among  them  M\ 
Breiner),  on  their  way  to  and  from  the  grocery  store,  had  paused  t 
greet  a  friend,  and  here  and  there  a  “little  group,”  meeting  quite  b 
accident,  had  stopped  for  a  casual  chat.  Some  twenty  or  so  lolled  o 
the  schoolhouse  yard.  (Disinterested  witnesses  testified  there  wei 
not  less  than  five  hundred!)  Now  and  then  “a  few”  boys,  in  pure! 
mischievous  spirit,  threw  a  stone  or  two  at  the  Sweets’  house.  It  w; 
into  these  placid,  unoffending  people,  the  prosecution  contended,  th; 
the  Sweets,  suddenly  and  without  any  provocation  shot.  (After  yc 
know  more  of  the  facts  you  will  be  better  able  to  appreciate  the  gri 
humor  of  this  picture.) 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


57 


Clarence  Darrow  rose,  and  going  straight  to  the  jury,  in  quiet, 
olloquial,  almost  intimate  fashion,  set  before  them  the  personalities 
nd  background  of  Dr.  Sweet  and  his  brother  Henry.  He  sketched 
or  them  the  necessity  that  faces  colored  folk  in  Detroit  of  moving 
nto  new  territory,  explained  how  gradually  the  colored  district  was 
xtended :  “Sometimes  leaping  over  a  few  doors,  sometimes  a  few 
docks — whenever  it  is  extended,  meeting  with  resistance,  as  people 
lon’t  want  the  colored  man  too  near  them.” 

“Well,”  he  continued,  in  his  apparently  rambling  fashion,  “Dr. 
Sweet  looked  around  for  a  house  and  finally  determined  to  go  here, 
i  think  that  the  nearest  residence  occupied  by  colored  people  to  this 
louse  was  about  three  blocks  away.  In  that  I  am  not  quite  certain,  are 
7ou?”  And  he  turned  to  Mr.  Toms  who  nodded  and  replied,  “Yes, 
hree.”  (It  is  a  way  Darrow  has  of  turning  informally  to  the  prose- 
ution — for  correction  or  corroboration  on  matters  of  fact  not  debat- 
ible.  A  little  thing,  but  it  helps  to  create  an  atmosphere  of  good  feei¬ 
ng  and  sincerity.) 

He  went  into  some  detail  about  the  neighborhood  of  “average 
leople.”  “Not  any  more  than  average,”  he  commented  with  a  chuckle 
:nd  a  hunch  of  his  big  shoulders.  “You'll  see,”  he  promised,  “when 
hey  testify.”  (They  were,  indeed,  taken  in  the  mass,  as  they  ap- 
>eared  in  court,  uneducated  and  narrow-minded.)  He  explained  how 
hey  began  to  prepare  for  the  reception  of  Dr.  Sweet  and  his  family 
>y  organizing  the  Waterworks  Improvement  Association.  He  related 
he  harrowing  experiences  of  Bristol,  Turner  and  Fletcher,  colored  men 
vho,  with  their  families,  had  been  ejected  from  their  homes  by  mobs. 
I  wrote  about  them  in  some  detail  last  month.)  He  told  of  the  Sweets’ 
jnoving  in  on  the  morning  of  the  eighth,  of  the  large  crowd  that  gath¬ 
ered  and  hung  around  the  doctor’s  house  all  night  until  the  early  hours 
if  the  ninth.  He  explained  how  Dr.  Sweet  had  helped  Henry  in  his 
:f fort  to  get  an  education.  (He  was  just  ready  for  his  senior  year  at 
Yilberforce  College  when  the  riot  occurred.)  He  made  very  real  the 
■oung  man’s  natural  feeling  of  loyalty  and  obligation  toward  his  brother 
ind  his  family. 

Then  quite  suddenly,  after  this  half  hour  or  so  of  quiet,  interesting 
larrative,  Darrow  sharply  raised  that  flexible  voice  of  his  and  not  noisily 
)ut  emphatically  declared :  “So  when  Dr.  Sweet  moved,  Henry  went 
dong  with  him,  and  he  knew  why  he  went.  We  don’t  propose  to  dodge 
my  issue  in  this  case.  He  went  to  help  defend  his  brother’s  home,  if 
leed  be,  with  his  life.  I  don’t  know  just  how  much  of  an  agreement 
vas  made — but  they  proposed  to  die  defending  their  home  if  necessary. 
Hie  guns  (the  revolvers,  I  believe,  were  in  a  valise  and  the  ammunition 
n  satchels)  were  with  them  and  were  not  shown  to  the  police.”  One 
relt  rather  than  heard  the  little  gasp  from  everyone  as  Darrow  tran- 
piilly  made  this  admission.  It  was  the  touch  of  a  master  of  his  craft, 
;ure  of  the  justness  of  his  case. 

Graphically  but  simply  he  described  the  events  of  the  ninth  of 
September,  made  vivid  “the  large  crowd  around  the  Sweets  that  had 
)een  gathering  from  the  four  corners  of  the  city.”  Still  with  his 
lands  upon  the  jury  rail,  talking  in  that  direct  man-to-man  fashion, 
ie  reminded  them  that  half  an  hour  before  the  shooting  the  policemen 


58 


Clarence  Darrow’’ s  Two  Great  Trials 


upon  the  corner  were  sending  out  cries  for  aid  and  diverting  traffi  ^ 
so  that  one  could  not  get  to  the  Sweets  except  by  parking  on  one  o  B(j 
the  side  streets  and  walking  up  to  the  corner  of  Garland  and  Charle  : 
voix,  on  which  the  doctor’s  property  was  located.  “You  gentlemen,' 
he  commented  dryly  at  this  point,  “may  be  able  to  guess  why  all  thi  $ 
was  going  on — if  the  evidence  isn’t  plain.”  In 

Lastly  he  reminded  them  that  five  minutes  before  the  shooting 
two  policemen  were  hastily  sent  up  to  the  roof  of  the  apartment  housi 
across  the  street  (in  order  that  they  might  look  down  and  see  who  wen  t[; 
the  ring-leaders  of  the  disturbance).  He  pictured  the  Sweets  and  thei: 
friends  “huddled  together,”  agitated,  going  from  time  to  time  to  <  \:f 
window  to  look  out.  “And  then,”  he  went  on  sternly,  “the  crowd  begat  !4 
throwing  stones  against  the  house.  The  doctor  and  his  friends  wen  •; 
ready.  They  were  scared,  but  they  were  ready.  Other  stones  cam< 
down  on  the  house.  Probably  nobody  would  be  able  to  tell  you  how 
many.  You  will  have  to  guess  at  it.  The  crowd  increased,  stones  cam< 
through  the  window  and  they  shot.”  A  dramatic  pause.  When  ht 
went  on  it  was  to  conclude  very  quietly:  “I  don’t  know  any  more  thar 
Mr.  Toms  does,  how  many  shots  were  fired.  I  don’t  know  who  killed 
Breiner.  Perhaps  it  was  Henry  Sweet.  I  can’t  tell,  and  he  can’t.” 

You  see  from  the  very  first  moment  that  Darrow  began  to  talk 
to  the  jury  to  the  last  moving  words  of  that  unforgetable  summing 
up  of  his,  nearly  three  weeks  later,  he  was  inspiring  in  those  twelve 
men  confidence  in  his  own  integrity  and  the  righteousness  of  his  cause. 
They  felt,  those  men — I  know  they  did — as  you  would  feel,  if  meeting 
Clarence  Darrow  he  were  to  sit  down  with  you  quietly  and  explain  to 
you  for  your  own  particular  personal  benefit  all  the  inside  facts  of  the 
case.  He  never  quibbled.  Never  once  did  he  take  refuge  behind  a 
technicality.  r 

“If  Henry  Sweet  went  there,”  he  elucidated  to  the  jurors,  “or 
agreed  after  he  got  there  to  kill  somebody  upon  a  slight  provocation, 
then  he  would  be  guilty  of  murder  regardless  of  who  fired  the  shot. 
But  if  he  went  there,  as  we  claim,  for  the  purpose  of  defending  his 
brother’s  home  and  family  as  it  was  not  only  his  right,  but  his  duty 
to  do,  or  if  he  went  there  for  that  purpose  and  made  a  mistake  and 
shot  when  in  fact  it  wasn’t  necessary  to  kill,  but  he  thought  it  was — 
he  is  innocent.” 

The  state  produced  seventy-one  eye-witnesses  to  prove  that  only 
“a  few”  were  present  at  Charlevoix  and  Garland  just  before  the  shoot-’ 
ing  from  the  Sweets’  house.  These  witnesses  were  of  three  sorts: 
policemen,  half-grown  boys,  and  neighbors  (most  of  them  members  of 
the  Waterworks  Improvement  Association).  I  want  you  to  see  and  hear 
for  yourself  one  or  two  of  each  class. 

Darrow  himself  cross-examined  Inspector  Schucknecht.  A  big, 
burly,  heavy-jawed  policeman  was  the  inspector,  with  ears  set  well 
down  on  a  square  head  almost  flat  on  top  and  straight  up  and  down 
in  the  back.  Thick -bodied,  thick-necked,  and  double-chinned,  he  had, 
a  regular  bulldog  face  and  a  habit  of  pulling  down  a  corner  of  his 
heavy  mouth  as  he  squinted  up  one  eye.  Not  at  all  a  pleasant  person  to 
contemplate,  I  can  assure  you.  He  has,  moreover,  for  twenty-five  years 
been  on  the  police  force  and  suffers  from  anything  but  an  inferiority 


Marcel  H aid eman- Julius 


59 


omplex.  As  he  sat  in  the  witness  box  he  rested  one  arm  on  the  chair 
nd  let  his  ha*nd,  adorned  by  a  huge  ring  on  the  fourth  finger,  swing 
oosely.  His  tone  when  he  was  questioned  by  Darrow,  was  a  miracle 
if  patronizing  patience.  His  whole  manner,  crafty  and  cautious,  indi- 
ated  that  he  intended  to  conceal  the  truth  and  not  be  trapped,  either, 
n  the  doing  of  it.  Bear  in  mind  that  his  own  sister  and  her  husband 
who  was  with  Schucknecht  at  the  corner  of  Garland  and  Charlevoix 
>n  the  night  of  the  shooting)  belong  to  the  neighborhood  and  are  sat¬ 
urated  with  its  attitude.  This,  if  you  please,  and  not  kind  Lieutenant 
lays  or  even  Inspector  McPherson,  known  to  be  fairly  decent  toward 
degrees,  was  the  man  to  whom  the  Sweets  were  entrusted  by  a  de- 
>artment  that  according  to  its  officers’  own  story  feared  and  was  all 
irepared  for  a  riot. 

To  Darrow’s  question,  “Did  you  hear  any  unusual  noise  or  shout- 
ng  before  the  shooting?”  the  inspector  answered  bluntly:  “I  did  not.” 
‘Humph,”  said  Darrow  dryly  as  he  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked 
it  the  jury. 

“Notice  any  automobiles?” 

“Yes,”  Schucknecht  admitted  with  wary  condescension.  “Traffic 
vas  heavy.  We  had  two  men  to  divert  it.”  (From  this  quiet,  tranquil 
leighborly  street,  mind  you!) 

But  that  traffic  was  heavy  was  about  all  that  he  would  admit. 
For  he  testified  that  he  didn’t  even  see  any  taxi  stop  in  front  of  the 
5weet  house.  (It  was  when  Otis  Sweet  and  Davis,  a  colored  United 
States  narcotic  officer,  who  were  to  live  with  the  Sweets,  came  home 
:rom  work  that  the  crowd,  shouting  “Niggers !’’  started  the  barrage 
pf  stones  that  precipitated  the  shooting.)  But  Schucknecht  swore,  on 
nis  oath,  that  he  didn’t  see  any  of  this ;  that  he  didnt  see  any  stones 
dir  own  prior  to  the  shooting;  that  according  to  his  knowledge  there 
iveren’t  any  stones  thrown,  although  he  did  find  “one  stone  in  the 
house  and  two  holes  afterward.”  He  maintained  that  all  the  people 
(including  those  on  the  porches)  within  a  radius  of  a  block  each  wav 
from  Dr.  Sweet’s  house,  would  not  number  more  than  150;  that  all 
3f  these  were  quietly  attending  to  their  ordinary  concerns ;  that  with¬ 
out  the  slightest  warning  a  volley  of  shots  came  out  of  the  Sweets’ 
house. 

Yet,  as  Darrow  adroitly  brought  out,  he  went  alone  to  these  ter¬ 
rible  gunmen.  The  fact  was,  he  knew  very  well  that  they  were  firing 
only  in  sheer  desperation,  defending  themselves,  and  that  at  the  mer¬ 
est  hint  of  real  protection  they  were  only  too  glad  to  stop.  The  help 
the  noble  inspector  gave  them  was  to  handcuff  them  all,  turn  on  the 
lights,  throw  up  the  blinds.  Arriving,  after  a  hasty  summons,  Lieu¬ 
tenant  Hays  (whose  work  is  among  colored  people)  sharply  ordered 
the  ddetor  released  and  the  blinds  pulled  down  “for  their  protection 
and  ours” — so  his  testimony  ran.  It  was  he„  who  discovered  that  in  all 
the  excitement  the  patrol  wagon  had  not  yet  been  summoned.  Taken 
in  it  to  Pleadquarters  (the  Sweets  did  not  yet  know  anyone  had  been 
killed)  the  first  thing  they  heard  was:  “Why  the  hell  did  you  want 
to  move  into  a  neighborhood  where  you  knew  you  weren’t  wanted?” 
Doggedly,  persistently  Darrow  made  it  clear  by  his  cross-examination 


cu 


Clarence  Darroiv s  Two  Great  Trials 


of  Schueknecht  that,  whatever  the  Inspector’s  words  might  be.  an 
however  stoutly  he  might  deny  the  presence  of  more  than  “a  few  yi 
that  evening,  every  action  of  his  and  of  the  rest  of  the  police  had  in  ; 
dicated  that  there  was  a  crowd  and  that  crowd  a  large  one.  ( 

The  next  witness,  Lieutenant  Paul  Shellenberger,  a  much  younge 
man,  well  set  up,  at  first  glance  straightforward  enough  looking,  prov&  1 
upon  examination  to  be  just  as  stubbornly  evasive,  unopen  and  hostil 
as  his  chief  had  been.  Shellenberger,  too,  testified  that  he  “suddenly  p 
heard  fifteen  or  twenty  shots  and  saw  flashes.  Whereupon,  he  ran  t< 
the  telephone  and  called  for  reserves.  “What !”  exclaimed  Chawki  * 
(whose  turn  it  was  to  cross-examine — he  and  Mr.  Darrow  alternated) 
“While  the  shots  rained  you  were  running?  Why  didn’t  you  go  witl 
Schueknecht  to  the  Sweets?”  “Why  should  I?”  demanded  the  Lieu 
tenant.  “Do  you  mean  to  say  you  let  your  superior  officer  go  alone?' 
“Why,  certainly,”  was  the  answer.  It  brought  from  the  courtroon 
its  first  low  but  hearty  laughter.  This  followed : 

Q.  Did  you  see  an  unusual  number  of  automobiles  in  that  district  while  yot 
were  there  that  night?  (They  were  speaking  of  the  ninth,  the  night  of  the  shoot-  , 

ing.) 

A.  (Firmly.)  I  should  say  not.  , 

Q.  Were  you  present  when  Deputy  Superintendent  Sprott  instructed  Schuck- 
necht  to  direct  the  traffic  off  of  Garland  Avenue? 

A.  I  was. 

Q.  Did  you  participate  in  the  discussion  about  the  number  of  machines  which 
were  coming  into  that  immediate  neighborhood? 

A.  I  did  not. 

Q.  Do  you  know  where  the  automobiles  went  after  leaving  Garland  Avenue? 

A.  I  do  not. 

Q.  Do  you  know  how  many  automobiles  were  parked  just  before  this  shooting 
on  any  of  the  side  streets  east  and  west  of  Garland  Avenue? 

A.  I  do  not. 

Q.  Or  where  the  occupants  of  those  cars  went? 

A.  I  do  not. 

Q.  You  do  not  know  whether  they  came  back,  walked  back  to  the  corner  of 
Charlevoix  and  Garland,  do  you? 

A.  I  do  not. 

Q.  Isn’t  it  true  now,  officer,  that  it  was  because  there  were  so  many  machines 
coming  into  Charlevoix  and  Garland,  that  you  officers  determined  you  would  divert 
the  traffic  off  of  Garland  so  as  to  keep  them  from  coming  up  there? 

A.  No,  sir. 

Q.  Then  why  did  you  not  stop  the  traffic  from  coming  up  St.  Clair  and  Bewick? 
(The  streets  to  the  right  and  left  of  Garland  and  parallel  to  it.) 

A.  Because  it  was  not  necessary. 

Q.  W\\y  W'asn’t  it  necessary? 

A.  I  think  the  streets  are  wider  and  can  accommodate  more  cars. 

Q.  (Dryly.)  Tell  us  how  many  feet  wider  Bewick  Avenue  is  than  Garland 
Avenue.  * 

A.  (Obviously  embarrassed.)  I  couldn't  tell  you.  I  don’t  think  there  is  any 
difference  in  the  width  at  all. 

Q.  How  many  feet  wider  is  St.  Clair  than  Garland? 

A.  (By  this  time /flushing  a  dull  red.)  I  don’t  think  there  is  any  difference 
in  the  width  at  all. 


Mcircet  H aid eman- Julius 


61 


Q.  Then,  why  didn’t  you  stop  the  automobiles  from  going  up  St.  Clair  and 
iewick  ? 

A.  Why  should  I  ? 

Q.  Well,  you  did  at  Garland,  did  you  not? 

A.  Yes. 

Q.  Why  did  you  do  that  at  Garland? 

A.  Because  we  did  not  want  any  cars  in  the  vicinity,  only  what  really  be- 
onged  there. 

Q.  Were  there  any  persons  coming  into  that  vicinity  in  automobiles  who  did 
lot  belong  in  that  neighborhood? 

A.  Not  after  the  traffic  was  diverted. 

Q.  Were  there  before? 

A.  Yes. 

Q.  Who  were  they? 

A.  I  do  not  know. 

Q.  Was  traffic  getting  heavy? 

A.  It  appeared  to  me  that  people  were  getting  curious,  more  so  than  any- 
hing  else,  and  there  was  an  unusual  amount  of  traWic. 

Q.  Then  there  zoas  an  unusual  amount  of  automobile  traffic  there,  wasn't 

here? 

A.  (And  Shellenberger,  realizing  that,  thoroughly  cornered,  he  had  contra- 
licted  himself,  with  a  quick  look  at  Toms,  made  a  firm  announcement  for  the  edi¬ 
fication  of  all  listeners.)  There  were. 

I  hqve  given  you  this  portion  of  one  testimony  in  so  much  detail 
because  it  was  typical  of  the  testimony  of  all  the  police  to  whom  we 
istened.  With  the  single  exception  of  Lieutenant  Hays  there  was  not 
me  of  the  force  in  whom  the  wish  to  conceal,  to  quibble,  to  misrepre¬ 
sent  was  not  as  obvious  as  in  Lieutenant  Shellenberger.  Make  of  it 
vhat  you  will.  I  confess  I  often  could  not  quite  credit  my  own  ears. 

Moreover  it  was  only  by  such  persistent,  wearing  diligence  that 
Mr.  Darrow  and  Mr.  Chawke  were  able  to  prove  to  the  jury  the  fact 
fhat  there  was  a  crowd  at  Garland  and  Charlevoix  on  September  ninth. 
But  prove  it  they  did  in  the  above  fashion  by  not  only  one  but  by 
nany  of  the  state’s  own  witnesses  who  took  the  stand  determined  no 
me  should  drag  the  truth  out  of  them. 

It  was  Shellenberger,  let  me  add,  to  whom  Lieutenant  Hays,  who 
nad  been  detailed  to  investigate  the  conditions  in  the  Sweet  and  sev¬ 
eral  other  neighborhoods,  reported  the  fact  that  the  Sweets  were  not 
going  to  be  permitted  to  move  in ;  that  they  were  not,  in  all  probability, 
going  to  be  permitted  even  to  unload  their  van.  Hays  testified  that 
he  asked  Shellenberger  if  he  were  prepared  to  protect  the  Sweets;  that  as 
he  went  on  to  explain  the  situation  to  him,  Shellenberger  “cut  him 
off  short  with  ‘It’ll  be  taken  care  of.’  ”  “And,”  said  Hays  simply,  “it 
was  all  the  satisfaction  he  would  give  me.” 

It  was  during  the  questioning  of  the  police  that  Darrow  brought 
out  that  for  several  clays  the  department  had  been  expecting  the  dis¬ 
turbance;  had  even  brought  in  men  from  another  precinct;  had  kept 
the  flier  manned  by  eight  or  nine  officers  in  readiness ;  and  Walter 
Doran,  a  plain-clothes  detective,  with  his  partner,  stationed  for  three 
days  at  Garland  and  Charlevoix  to  watch  for  any  stones  that  mignt 
be  thrown  from  automobiles.  Doran,  by  the  way,  was  another  who 


62 


Clarence  Barrows  Two  Great  Trials 


coolly  testified  that  there  was  not  a  great  number  of  automobiles  o  ini 
the  night  of  the  ninth.  A  gay  and  lively  evening  of  it  that  young  mai  not 
must  have  spent !  According  to  his  own  testimony,  at  eight  o’clocl  311 
(the  shooting  started  at  eight  twenty-five)  he  was  hastily  dispatchei  us 
to  the  station  to  get  two  other  officers.  As  soon  as  he  got  back,  en  |i 
gine  still  chugging,  he  was  told  to  “hurry  up  and  get  six  more” — whicl'  he 
with  the  four  men  who  had  been  there  all  day,  and  the  four  extr;  jty 
ones  by  which,  on  the  late  afternoon,  they  had  been  augmented,  no 
to  mention  Deputy  Superintendent  Sprott,  Lieutenant  Shellenberger  (ot 
Inspector  Schucknecht,  and  Doran  himself  made  exactly  twenty  officer  jjgl 
who  were  fussing  around  that  corner.  And  yet  it  was  at  this  moment  m 
when  they  apparently  most  needed  men,  that  two  officers  were  sen 
up  to  the  apartment  house  roof.  (These  brave  fellows  admitted  tha 
when  the  shooting  began  they  dropped  hastily  to  their  stomachs  anc 
did  nothing.)  Gill  (raised  in  Tennessee)  seems  to  have  been  the  onh 
officer  moved  to  action.  When  the  riot  occurred,  by  his  own  testimony 
he  rushed  into  the  yard  and — deliberately  fired  at  the  very  people  whon 
he  had  been  detailed  to  guard. 

Darrow  also  brought  out,  by  cross-examination,  that  during  th< 
whole  two  days  these  extra  policemen  were  around  the  Sweet  house, 
not  one  of  them  went  up  to  the  doctor — as  they  would  have  done  tc 
any  white  man  under  similar  circumstances  to  say  humanly  and  sin 
cerely:  “We’re  here.  You  can  count  on  us.”  No.  Nothing  like  that 
They  just,  as  they  themselves  put  it,  “stood  around  and  observed  con¬ 
ditions.”  (Almost  all  of  them  lived  in  that  district.)  Not  one  oi 
them  heard  any  disturbance,  saw  any  crowd,  heard  any  stones  throwr 
and  only  one  or  two  of  the  lot  admitted  that  they  saw  even  the  tax 
drive  up  and  stop. 

“Gentlemen,”  Darrow  declared  in  his  summing  up  to  the  jury 
“you  could  have  loaded  that  house  on  trucks  and  moved  it  away — the 
police  never  would  have  known  it!” 

Having  established,  and  that  through  the  state’s  own  witnesses, 
first  that  there  was  a  crowd  and  next  that  since  the  police  were  ex¬ 
pecting  that  the  Sweets  would  be  attacked,  the  doctor  and  his  family 
were  justified  in  making  the  same  assumption,  Darrow  proceeded  to 
prove  that  the  crowd  came  intending  to  use  violent  measures  in  ejecting 
the  Sweets.  This  he  did  through  the  people  of  the  neighborhood. 

The  people  who  owned  the  house  next  to  the  Sweets  were  as 
typical  as  any.  Mr.  Getke,  a  piano-tuner,  was  a  mole-like  little  person, 
who  blinked  frequently  and  complained  that  “his  memory  always  had 
been  just  naturally  short.”  Like  most  of  the  others  who  followed  him 
he  couldn’t  remember  anything  definitely,  thought  he  had  seen  this  and 
that,  might  have  been  doing  so  and  so.  He  “surmised,”  but  didn’t! 
know,  that  the  crowd  on  the  eighth  (he  admitted  there  was  a  crowd  on 
the  eighth)  might  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  Sweets’  arrival;; 
he  might  have  seen  a  few  extra  cars  around  there  on  the  ninth.  Mr. 
Toms,  instantly  alert  upon  his  admission  that  he  had  seen  a  crowd 
on  the  eighth,  asked  him,  “What  do  you  mean  when  you  say  you  saw 
the  crowd  there — are  you  sure  you  saw  a  crowd?”  To  which,  after' 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


63 


0  linking  rapidly  for  a  few  minutes,  the  little  fellow  replied  naively 
(hough:  “I  just  surmised  I  saw  it.”  It  was  a  remark  which  as  you 
:  an  well  imagine  brought  a  low  amused  murmur.  In  an  instant  Chawke 
Las  on  his  feet.  “Why  don’t  you  tell  the  truth!”  he  blazed.  “Was 
here  or  was  there  not  a  crowd  in  front  of  Dr.  Sweet’s?”  “No,”  said 
le  little  mole  firmly.  “You  ‘surmised,’  didn’t  you,”  demanded  Chawke 
ryly,  “that  Mr.  Toms  wanted  you  to  say  no?  You  saw  between  five 
undred  and  a  thousand  people  there,  didn’t  you?”  “No.”  “What  did 
ou  see?”  There  was  a  pause  and  then  came  this  answer — “Three 
tolicemen.”  “That’s  all?”  “Yes.”  At  which  Mr.  Chawke,  with 
/rath fully  sardonic  eyes  and  a  look  at  the  jury,  dismissed  him. 

But  I  can  assure  you  that  he  was  frankness  itself  compared  with 
lis  wife.  When  she  came  in  and  took  the  stand  she  looked  attractive 
nough  in  her  dark  serge  suit  trimmed  in  red,  and  her  becoming  red 
lat.  But  as  soon  as  she  began  to  testify  her  face  took  on  a  hard,  shut 
ook.  Like  most  of  the  witnesses  from  that  neighborhood  she  spoke 
ungrammatically.  “Far  as  I  could  see,”  she  testified,  “there  was  just 
)eople  on  their  porches.  Perhaps  there  was  some  on  the  sidewalk. 

don’t  know.”  (As  Darrow  brought  out  from  the  different  wit¬ 
nesses,  there  were  at  least  fifty  people  in  her  direct  line  of  vision.) 
phe  admitted  she  had  heard  that  the  Sweets  were  coming,  but  didn’t 
mow  from  whom  she  had  heard  it,  or  when.  She  didn’t  know  when 
he  had  joined  the  Waterworks  Improvement  Association,  or  why. 
Cornered  by  Darrow,  she  said,  eyes  partly  closed,  hostility  pouring 
:rom  her:  “I  joined  because  my  husband  did.”  Darrow  at  last,  usual- 
y  patience  personified,  was  exasperated  almost  beyond  endurance  and 
:xclaimed,  “Remember  you  are  under  oath !”  She  retorted  in  a  hard 
one,  “I  am  well  aware  of  that.”  Not  if  she  could  help  it  were  the 
ihveets  ever  going  to  move  into  that  house  just  fifteen  feet  from 
lers !  She  insisted  that  she  had  no  idea  of  the  purpose  of  the  Asso- 
:iation  and  didn’t  know  one  person  who  belonged  to  it,  “Is  there,” 
irawled  out  Darrow,  “anything  you  do  know  ?” 

The  gist  of  all  the  testimony  was  strikingly  the  same.  They 
‘didn’t  know,”  had  “seen  only  policemen,”  had  noticed  “only  a  few  peo- 
ale,”  no  more  than  just  “the  usual  number”  of  little  groups  chatting 
aere  and  there.  Mr.  Dove  testified  that  ten  or  fifteen  people  were  on 
die  lawn  when  Breiner  was  standing  there  in  front  of  his  house.  Mrs. 
Dove  said  cautiously  “there  might  have  been  some  people — but  she 
lidn’t  see  any.”  (The  Doves  were  a  young  couple — in  their  late  twen- 
:ies,  I  should  judge.  They  would  have  been  likable  enough,  too,  in 
heir  own  way,  had  not  their  resentment  and  injustice  toward  the  Sweets, 
People  infinitely  their  superiors,  made  them  seem  as  absurd  as  they 
were  vindictive.) 

Well,  so  it  went.  Try  as  they  would,  for  a  week,  neither  Darrow 
aor  Chawke  could  either  surprise  or  patiently  dig  out  of  anyone  the 
idmission  that  violence  toward  the  Sweets  ever  had  been  discussed, 
tiuch  less  advocated. 

And  presently  we  found  ourselves  listening  to  some  boys.  One 
testified  that  there  were  seven  of  them  on  the  Dove  lawn — across  from 


64 


Clarence  Darrow’ s  Two  Great  Trials 


the  Sweets — that  three  of  them  were  throwing  stones  at  the  Sweet  tec 
house  and  no  one  tried  to  stop  them.  Another,  Willard  (I  didn’t  catc  W 
his  last  name),  testified  that  there  were  “just  a  few  loose  people”  o  »»• 
the  schoolhouse  yard.  Having  caught  the  tone  of  his  elders  he  couldn  hi 
even  remember  the  names  of  any  of  the  boys  with  whom  he  had  playe 
baseball  that  evening.  “But  there  must  have  been  eight  of  us,”  he  \o  y. 
unteered.  “We  were  just  playing  scrub.”  Darrow  wisely  discussed  th  ;K 
national  game  with  him  and  he  became  quite  suddenly  natural  and  s:  1[0 
human  that  when  Darrow  asked  casually,  “Why  didn’t  you  go  dow  „ 
to  St.  Clair  that  evening  instead  of  over  to  Garland?”  he  answere 
readily  enough,  “Oh,  there  wasn’t  any  people  there  and  over  at  Gai  l, 
land  the  people  were  all — ”  Suddenly  he  stopped,  embarrassed,  realk  ,c 
ing  what  he  had  done.  Darroyv  asked  him  why  he  didn’t  go  on.  H  # 
flushed  and  said  quite  simply :  “I  got  mixed  up.”  “Because,”  sak 
Darrow  very  gently,  “you’ve  been  told  by  everybody  you  know  not  t 
say  there  were  more  than  ‘a  few.’  ”  The  boy  continued  to  look  ver 
uncomfortable.  “Is  there  any  reason,”  Darrow  continued  in  the  sam 
kind  tone,  “why  you  don’t  want  to  tell  the  truth?”  Even  as  he  spok, 
he  turned  to  the  record  of  the  last  trial  and  read  the  boy’s  own  testi 

mony  at  that  time :  “I  saw  people  gathered  over  there  [Garland  an< 

Charlevoix]  and  so  I  went  over.”  Having  made  the  one  slip  nothin; 

more  was  to  be  got  out  of  him.  Like  the  others  he  hadn’t  seen  any 

body  he  knew,  didn’t  remember  anybody  he  had  seen,  saw  no  one  throv1 
any  stones,  saw  no  glass  break,  saw  no  one  drive  up  to  the  Sweetsl 
house  in  a  taxi,  and  so,  of  course,  saw  no  one  get  out.  “And  if  then 
had  been  any  stones  thrown,  you’d  have  seen  them,”  said  Darrov 
suavely.  “Yes.”  “ Couldn’t  have  been  any  thrown  without  your  know 
ing  it?”  “No,  sir.”  With  one  of  his  rare  grins  Darrow  announcec 
mildly,  “Well,  I  guess  we’ll  have  to  give  up  the  stones.”  Everybodj 
smiled. 

A  fat,  pudgy,  self-contained  man,  who  ran  a  billiard  hall  and  lived 
one  block  west  of  the  Sweets,  couldn’t  even  remember  the  name  oi 
the  neighbor  (although  he  had  lived  close  to  him  eleven  years)  who 
asked  him  to  join  the  Waterworks  Park  Association.  In  fact  he  couldn’i 
even  remember  whether  he  had  joined  before  or  after  the  shooting 
and  had  no  idea  why  the  meeting  at  the  Howe  school  (he  did  admit 
attending  it)  had  adjourned  to  the  outside.  (It  was  because  the  crowd' 
was  so  large  and  there  wasn’t  space  in  any  of  the  rooms.)  “They  may; 
have  gone  out  to  cool  off,”  suggested  Moll  in  an  aside.  Darrow  gave 
him  a  disgusted  look.  Angrily  he  snorted:  “They  gathered  out  there 
to  heat  up !” 

Yet  it  was  from  this  man  that  he  got  one  of  his  first  admissions 
so  necessary  to  convince  the  jury  that  the  attitude  of  the  neighbor¬ 
hood  was  defiantly  hostile.  For  by  brilliant  and  patient  cross-examina¬ 
tion,  he  ferreted  out  the  confession  that  this  Miller  did  want  to  keep 
colored  people  out  of  the  district.  But,  he  insisted,  only  by  “legal 
measures.” 

And  then  on  Saturday  one  Mr.  Andrews  was  called  to  the  stand. 
It  was  the  end  of  the  week  and  Darrow  was  tired  and  worn  out  with 


!i 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


65 


et  fie  constant  evading  and  almost  unbroken  effort  to  misrepresent.  More- 
tl  ver,  he  had  a  bad  cold.  He  looked  that  morning  like  a  cross,  rumpled 
c  on.  Not  for  the  world  would  I  have  stood  in  Mr.  Andrews’  shoes  as 
In  )arrow  grimly  surveyed  him. 

Now  Andrews  was  somewhat  different  from  his  predecessors, 
’rejudiced  against  Negroes  he  might  be  and  was;  and  hostile  to  the 
weets.  He  didn’t  want  them  in  his  neighborhood.  But  he  was  neither 
coward  nor  an  arrant  liar.  Even  at  that  Darrow  had  anything  but  an 
asy  job  to  pry  out  of  him  the  facts.  Finally  he  admitted  that  the  man 
dio  talked  at  the  Howe  School  meeting  was  from  the  Tireman  Avenue 
mprovement  Association.  (In  driving  out  Dr.  Turner,  a  colored  man, 
rom  their  district  the  people  of  this  association  literally  tore  off  his 
oof.)  Followed  a  long  and  searching  cross-examination  in  which  An- 
rews  admitted  that  the  speaker  “had  called  a  spade  a  spade  when  he 
liked.”  “Why  can’t  you  do  it?”  Darrow  demanded.  “Now  can’t  you 
ut  it  just  the  way  he  did?”  “This  man  was  an  outsider.  I  can’t  recall 
is  name  now.”  “Certainly  not,”  Darrow  agreed  dryly,  “but  what  did 
e  say?”  And  at  last  after  digging  and  worrying  at  Andrews  and 
ruch  hedging  on  the  latter’s  part  we  actually  heard  this:  “He  said  that 
hey — he  offered  the  support  of  the  Tireman  Avenue  Improvement  As¬ 
sociation  to  the  W aterzvorks  Improvement  Association  to  handle  the 
roblcm  that  it  zvas  up  against.”  More  wearing  cross-examination — 
latient,  detailed,  adroit,  on  Darrow’s  part ;  cautious,  reluctant,  but  not 
ishonest  on  Andrews’,  and  then,  from  Darrow :  “Did  he  say  they — 
he  organization — made  the  Turners  leave  the  house?”  “Yes,  he  did.” 
Andrews  admitted  further  that  the  speaker  had  said  “they  didn’t  want 
Colored  people  in  the  neighborhood  and  proposed  to  keep  them  out.” 
le  was,  he  added,  “very  outspoken  in  his  statements.”  He  admitted 

(hat  he  himself  had  applauded  this  speech.  To  Darrow’s  question  “that 
3  just  the  way  you  felt  then  and  the  way  you  feel  now?”  Andrews 
nswered,  “Yes,  I  haven’t  changed.”  “You  felt  just  the  same  as  the 
peaker  about  not  letting  them  out  there?”  “If  by  legal  means  we  could 
estrict  them.” 

Now  by  this  time  the  phrase  “legal  means”  was  just  one  little 
ihrase  that  Clarence  Darrow  was  heartily  tired  of  hearing.  He  shoved 
uis  hands  way  down  into  his  pockets,  let  his  face  fill  with  withering 
corn,  hunched  his  shoulders.  He  was  in  full  cry  after  his  quarry: 

Q.  Did  the  speaker  talk  about  “legal  means”? 

A.  I  admitted  to  you  that  this  man  was  radical. 

Q.  Answer  my  question.  Did  he  talk  about  legal  means? 

A.  No. 

Q.  He  talked  about  driving  them  out,  didn’t  he? 

A.  Yes,  he  was  radical — I  admit  that. 

Q.  You  say  you  approved  of  what  he  said  and  applauded  it,  didn’t  you? 

A.  Part  of  his  speech. 

Q.  In  what  way  was  he  radical? 

A.  Well,  I  don’t — I  myself  do  not  believe  in  violence. 

Q.  I  didn’t  ask  you  what  you  believed  in.  I  said  in  what  way  was  he  radical? 
Anything  more  you  want  to  say  about  what  you  mean  by  radical,  that  he  advo- 

atecj? 


66  Clarence  Darrcnv’s  Two  Great  Trials 


A.  No,  I  don’t  want  to  say  any  more. 

Q.  You  did  not  rise  in  that  meeting  and  say,  “I  myself  don’t  believe 
violence,”  did  you  ? 

A.  No;  I’d  had  a  fine  chance  with  600  people  there! 

Q.  What?  You  would  have  caught  it,  yourself,  wouldn’t  you?  You  would 
have  dared  to  do  it  at  that  meeting? 

Before  he  could  reply  Toms  exclaimed  in  much  excitement,  “Dot 
answer  it!”  adding,  as  he  turned  to  the  judge,  “I  object  to  it  as  ver 
very  improper,”  to  which  Judge  Murphy  returned  in  that  calming  voi 
of  his:  “The  objection  is  sustained.” 

Darrow  (knowing  very  well  just  how  neatly  Toms’  interrupt^ 
had  underscored  the  moment)  continued  again: 

Q.  What  did  you  mean  by  saying  you  had  a  fine  chance? 

Toms — obviously  nervous — again  interrupted:  “Wait  a  minul 
Did  you  get  the  Court’s  ruling?” 

Q.  What  did  you  mean  by  that? 

A.  You  imagine  I  would  have  made  myself  heard  with  600  people  there? 
wasn’t  on  the  platform. 

Q.  What  did  you  mean  by  saying  you  would  have  had  a  fine  chance  in  th 
meeting  where  600  people  were  present — to  make  the  statement  that  you  said? 

A.  I  object  to  violence. 

Q.  Did  anybody — did  anybody  in  that  audience  of  600  people  protest  agait 
advocating  violence  against  colored  people  who  moved  into  the  neighborhood?  , 

A.  I  don’t  know. 

Q.  You  didn’t  hear  any  protest? 

A.  No. 

Q.  You  only  heard  applause? 

A.  There  was — as  I  stated — this  meeting  was  in  the  schoolyard — 

Q.  You  heard  nobody  utter  any  protest,  and  all  the  manifestation  you  hea'j 
was  applause  at  what  he  said? 

A.  Yes,  that  is  all. 

Perturbed,  Mr.  Toms  took  him  at  once  for  redirect  examinatio 
“Did  he  advocate  violence?”  he  demanded.  The  cue  was  obvious,  b 
Andrews  had  gone  much  too  far  to  retract  and  knew  it.  “I  said  th 
man  was  radical,”  he  returned  stiffly.  “I  know  you  did,”  persists 
Toms.  “Did  he  advocate  violence?”  There  was  a  pause — then:  “Yes! 
said  Andrews. 

This  was  one  of  the  high  points  of  the  trial.  And  rounding  as 
did  the  second  week  of  it,  the  jury  had  something  over  which  to  pond'; 
until  the  following  Monday.  It  was  in  fact  the  end  of  the  first  a! 
of  this  stirring  drama. 

By  the  time  that  the  state  rested  its  case  on  the  following  Wedne^i 
day,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  neighborhood  into  which  the  Swee 
moved  had  been  tried  and  found  guilty.  It  is  difficult  to  make  yc 
realize  just  how  patiently,  surely,  and  brilliantly  Mr.  Darrow,  with  M 
Chawke’s  most  able  assistance,  refuted  the  state’s  case  by  the  very  w; 


 Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


67 


esses  brought  to  prove  it.  On  Thursday  of  the  third  week,  the  De- 
jnse  began  to  present  its  own. 

Its  witnesses  fell  also  into  groups — white  and  colored.  Of  the 
'blored  folk  none  had  seen  the  actual  shooting,  but  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
paulding  had  driven  by  in  their  car  just  before  the  streets  that  led 
)  the  Sweets’  corner  were  blocked  off.  Mrs.  Spaulding,  who  for  some 
'ears  has  been  a  social  service  worker  with  the  Detroit  branch  of  the 
Jrban  League,  and  who  was  not  personally  acquainted  with  the  Sweets, 

1  istif ied  that  she  thought  at  first  the  people  must  be  going  to  some 
ind  of  meeting,  but  the  expression  on  their  faces  made  her  realize  that 
imething  serious  was  happening.  Then  she  saw  the  crowd  in  the 
:hool  house  yard.  “There  were  about  twice  as  many  as  there  are  in 
lis  room,”  she  said  explicitly,  in  her  pleasant,  cultivated  voice.  Her 
lought  was,  naturally  enough,  that  there  must  have  been  an  acci- 
ent.  Tier  husband  told  her  what  he  conjectured  might  be  the  true 
ause.  For  although  he  had  not  known  that  the  Sweets  had  moved 
ito  the  house,  he  did  know  that  it  belonged  to  them,  and  that  they 
ad  dreaded  and  put  off  attempting  to  occupy  it.  He  himself  (an  Ann 
Lrbor  man)  testified  as  to  the  crowd  that  stretched  down  Charlevoix 
)  St.'  Clair  a  block  beyond  Garland.  There  is  a  filling  station  at 
lat  point  and  at  least  a  hundred  and  fifty  people  had  gathered  around 
.  Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Spaulding,  very  light  mulattos,  well  dressed 
nd  courteous  in  their  manner,  spoke  perfect  English.  They  made  a 
.riking  contrast  to  the  ill-bred,  ill-mannered,  arrogant  and  pert  white 
ien  and  women  who  had  preceded  them,  all  of  whom,  much  to  Dar- 
ow’s  amusement,  consistently  pronounced  Goethe  Street  as  if  it  were 
celled  Go-thie. 

James  Smith,  a  very  dark  young  man,  testified  that  as  he  and  his 
ncle  (neither  of  whom  had  ever  heard  of  the  Sweets  or  their  trouble) 
'ere  driving  home  from  an  errand,  they  saw,  when  they  reached  St. 
Hair,  between  five  hundred  and  a  thousand  people  on  Charlevoix  be- 
.veen  them  and  Garland.  There  were  two  solid  lines  of  cars  and  a 
oliceman  explained  to  him  that  he  would  “better  step  on  it  and  get 
ut  of  there.”  He  tried  to  take  the  advice,  but  the  crowd  was  so 
rick  that  he  could  make  but  little  progress. 

The  testimony  of  Robert  Smith  (James  Smith’s  uncle)  had  to  be 
ead,  for  he  had  died  since  the  other  trial.  He  must  have  been  a  col- 
rful  soul,  for  ungrammatical  as  much  that  he  said  was,  his  testi- 
lony,  as  read  in  a  monotone  by  Mr.  Chawke,  set  before  us  a  character 
imple,  truthful,  proud  of  itself  and  independent.  “I  goes  where  I 
oes,  and  pays  as  I  goes,”  was  one  of  the  answers  he  made  to  re- 
eated  interrogations  as  to  why,  why,  why  he  had  happened  to  be  on 
Charlevoix  that  evening.  “I  was  goin’  to  dinner,”  he  said,  “and  when 
wants  to  eat  anywhere  I  goes  by  any  street  I  pleases.”  There  was 
imething  eerie  in  the  thought  of  this  voice  speaking  so  firmly  from 
le  grave.  For  even  if  he  made  us  smile  a  little  every  few  lines,  he 
)ld  a  story  that  carried  weight.  With  his  nephew  and  himself  had 
een  a  friend  and  as  the  car  crawled  along  the  crowd  began  stoning 
,  shouting :  “There’s  niggers  now !  Get  ’em !  They’re  going  to  the 


68 


Clarence  Dar row’s  Two  Great  Trials 


Sweets’.”  “Who  was  these  Sweets,  that’s  what  I  wanted  to  know 
the  testimony  ran.  As  the  people  surged  around  the  car  the  ms 
with  the  Smiths  stepped  to  the  running  board,  put  his  hand  to  h 
hip  pocket  (in  which  there  was  no  revolver)  and  threatened  to  sho 
the  first  man  who  touched  them.  The  ruse  worked.  You  may  belie1 
they  were  glad  when  they  could  once  more  draw  a  free  breath. 

• 

Besides  the  character  witnesses,  which  included  Dr.  Jones,  tl 
president  of  Wilberforce  College,  a  man  of  real  achievement,  educatt 
largely  in  German  universities,  there  were  Serena  Rochelle  and  Edi 
Butler,  both  of  whom  testified  as  to  the  crowd  on  the  night  of  tl 
eighth.  Going  out  that  evening  to  help  Mrs.  Sweet  decide  about  dr 
peries,  they  had  been  afraid  to  go  home  and  had  stayed  until  the  ne: 
morning. 

' 

There  was  also  the  real  estate  agent  who  had  made  the  sale  b 
tween  Dr.  Sweet  and  the  Smiths  who  owned  the  property  before  hir 
Interestingly  enough  this  Mr.  Smith,  who  also  testified,  was  himse 
a  colored  man,  but  his  race  was  so  nearly  imperceptible  that  the  fo 
eign  people  in  the  neighborhood,  quite  a  number  of  whom  were  in  poii 
of  fact  considerably  darker  than  he,  were  never  quite  sure  whether  c 
not  the  rumor  that  he  was  a  Negro  was  true.  He  himself  took  it  fc 
granted  that  they  knew  that  he  was  and  one  of  the  reasons  Dr.  Swe> 
felt  reassured  about  purchasing  the  property  was  that  Mr.  Smith  hin 
self  had  never  been  molested.  You  see,  at  that  time  there  was  r 
Waterworks  Improvement  Association. 

Last  of  the  colored  witnesses  came  John  C.  Dancy,  a  graduate  c 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  dark,  poised,  charming,  head  of  tl 
Detroit  branch  of  the  Urban  League.  He  gave  facts  and  statistic 
about  the  growth  of  the  colored  population,  the  expansion  of  the  Negi 
district  and  housing  problems  in  such  an  interesting,  convincing  mar 
ner  that  he  quite  held  the  whole  courtroom  spellbound.  Even  M 
Toms  said  in  all  sincerity,  “It’s  so  interesting,  I  hate  to  leave  it.”  Yo 
can  get  some  idea  of  the  Negro  problem  when  you  realize  that  in  191 
there  were  only  6,000  of  them  in  Detroit;  in  1920  over  42,000,  and  i 
1926,  81,000.  He  added  that  1922  was  the  year  in  which  the  large: 
group  of  Negroes  came  up  from  the  South.  “By  group,”  rumble 
Darrow,  “I  suppose  you  mean  ‘a  few’.”  Needless  to  say  even  the  men 
bers  of  the  prosecution  joined  in  the  general  smile. 

Young  Dancy  brought  out  one  interesting  point  and  that  was  tlx 
the  common  acceptance  of  the  theory-that  Negroes  in  a  neighborhoo 
depreciate  property  is  not  entirely  substantiated  by  the  facts.  A  sma 
four-room  house,  we  learned,  which  would  ordinarily  rent  for  fort 
dollars  a  month  would,  if  rented  to  colored  people,  bring  fortv-fiv 
dollars.  A  man  with  property  to  sell  invariably  received  more  if  tb 
purchaser  were  a  Negro.  Many  houses  sold  to  white  people  in  a  bloc 
in  which  there  were  one  or  two  colored  families  have  netted  approx 
mately  the  same  amount  as  a  similar  house  in  a  comparable  neighbot 
hood  which  was  all  white. 

Now,  of  course,  just  as  the  state’s  witnesses,  because  of  their  eager 


Marcet  H aid eman- Julius 


69 


ss  to  keep  the  Sweets  from  returning  to  their  own  home,  were  obviously  * 
ejudiced,  so  one  could  say  that  all  these  colored  people  could  not  help 
ing  influenced  by  the  fact  that  they,  too,  were  Negroes.  But  the 
dense  produced  three  white  witnesses  whose  testimony  was  wholly 
sinterested. 

The  first  of  these  was  a  rather  slow-thinking  but  honest  youth, 
ly  Lorenze,  who  worked  in  the  tire  shop  where  Shellenberger  ran 
telephone  for  the  reserves.  He  was,  in  fact,  a  most  reluctant  witness 
d  came  only  when  he  was  subpoenaed.  He  testified  that  there  were  at 
ist  500  people  in  the  schoolyard. 

Philip  Adler,  for  eight  years  general  reporter  and  special  feature 
'iter  for  papers  in  various  large  cities,  now  on  the  Detroit  News  and 
ecturer  in  the  University  of  Detroit,  told  a  convincing  story.  Together 
th  his  wife  and  little  girl  he  was  out  riding  in  their  car  when,  coming 
iwn  St.  Clair  to  Charlevoix,  he  noticed  the  extraordinary  gathering 
people  all  along  the  block.  Like  Mrs.  Spaulding,  he  thought  there 
jst  have  been  an  accident  at  Garland  and  Charlevoix.  As  by  this  time 
iffic  was  being  diverted,  policemen  would  not  allow  him  to  turn  into 
larlevoix  so  he  kept  straight  on,  circled  around  and  cut  through  an 
ey  to  Garland,  where  he  parked  his  car  and,  having  a  nose  for  news, 
;nt  down  toward  the  Sweet  house.  He  testified  that  the  people  on 
irland  seemed  to  be  mostly  men  in  their  shirt  sleeves  with  a  general 
r  of  belonging  in  that  vicinity,  quite  different  from  the  five  hundred  or 
at  the  Charlevoix  side  of  the  corner.  “It  was,”  he  explained  suc- 
lctly,  “a  riotous  crowd.  It  was  not  a  quiet  crowd.”  As  he  neared  the 
)ve  house  he  “experienced  difficulty  of  movement.”  Wondering  what 
could  all  be  about  he  inquired  of  the  people  through  whom  he  was 
lowing  his  way,  and  was  told  that  “some  nigger  family  had  moved  in 
me  and  the  people  were  trying  to  get  rid  of  them.” 

About  this  time  he  heard  stones  hitting  the  house.  “I  have,”  he 
ited  clearly  to  a  courtroom  worn  out  with  conflicting  testimonies,  “I 
ve  a  very  vivid  impression  about  the  stones  in  my  mind,  because  I 
:ard  a  popping  sound,  a  pelting  sound  like  that,”  and  he  illustrated  it 
hitting  the  fist  of  one  hand  smartly  in  the  palm  of  the  other  at  short 
:ervals,  making  a  veritable  rat-a-tat -tat.  “I  couldn’t  figure  out  just 
nt  it  was  at  first,”  he  continued,  explaining  further  that,  as  he  had 
;  little  girl  with  him  when  the  shots  rang  out,  he  thought  it  best  to 
ce  her  home. 

He  was  followed  by  a  German  woman  (Mrs.  Hintiez)  whose  good- 
ss  fairly  shone  from  her  face.  For  years  she  and  her  husband  have 
rned  a  home  that  backs  on  the  same  alley  that  the  Sweet  property  does, 
e  testified  that  on  the  evening  of  the  ninth  she  started  to  the  grocery 
ire  to  get  her  little  dog  some  milk.  But  seeing  the  crowd  at  the  corner 
Garland  and  Charlevoix  she  did  not  like  to  go  through  it  and  returned 
|me,  where  she  hung  out  some  washing.  “And  then,”  she  said,  “I 
;  pped  me  by  the  alley  door.”  Standing  there  she  saw  policemen  run 
rough  the  alley  into  the  Sweet  yard  and  in  a  moment  heard  three  shots. 
Mere  was  a  short  interval  and  then  came  a  whole  volley.  (This  bears 


70 


Clarence  Darrow’ s  Two  Great  Trials 


out  exactly  the  story  to  which  Henry  Sweet  has  always  stuck — that  she  ft 
were  fired  first  from  without  the  house,  and  that  the  Sweets  thought  the  i 
were  aimed  at  them.  But  you  can  imagine,  perhaps,  in  view  of  all  tl  5 
difficulty  Darrow  had  to  prove  even  the  crowd,  how  impossible  it  woul  se 
have  been  to  show — if  Henry  is  right — exactly  when  and  by  whom  the.1  se 
shots  were  fired.)  No  better  educated  than  her  neighbors,  with  whoi 
she  lived  peacefully,  there  was  this  difference  between  them  and  Mr  , 

Hintiez — in  her  heart  there  was  no  hatred.  ® 

da 

Remained  one  witness  as  powerful  in  its  impression  as  any  in  tl  dy 
flesh.  It  was  the  July  12th  issue  of  the  Detroit  Free  Press.  Every  wor  u 
of  the  article,  from  which  I  have  already  quoted,  was  read  into  tl  ive 
record.  One  could  almost  see  it  register  with  the  jury.  tut 

Mr.  Darrow  and  Mr.  Chawke  did  not  feel  it  necessary  to  put  Hem  J 
himself  on  the  stand.  But  they  did  call  Dr.  Sweet.  He  testified  th;  ^ 
when  they  were  arrested,  “knowing  themselves  to  be  in  a  hostile  camp 
among  enemies  who  might  try  to  use  anything  they  said  to  incrimina-  : 
them,  they  had,  in  order  not  to  involve  each  other  (each  of  the  elevc  . 
was  questioned  separately),  denied  everything  and  been  as  non-con 
mittal  as  was  humanly  possible.  Henry,  not  as  adroit,  had  both  admitte  ) 
more  of  the  truth  than  the  others  and  at  the  same  time  made  more  mi  . 
statements.  Darrow  dealt  with  the  situation  in  his  summing  up  in  * 
manner  that  left  no  doubt  in  anyone’s  mind  that,  denied  a  lawyer  i 
they  were,  refused  even  the  privilege  of  telephoning  one,  they  acted  <  n 
any  sensible  person  under  similar  circumstances,  whether  guilty  or  inn<  • 
cent,  should  have  acted.  None  of  the  statements,  Darrow  pointed  ou  : 
were  given  under  oath  nor  given  voluntarily.  All  Friday  afternoon  ar  :i 
Saturday  morning  the  doctor  was  on  the  stand.  The  reason  was  obviou 
It  was  for  him  and  because  of  his  danger  that  Henry  had  fired.  The; 
was  nothing  dramatic  about  his  cross-examination.  Toms  was  determine  ‘ 
to  lead  him  into  some  contradictory  statement.  Dr.  Sweet,  mindful  th;  ; 
Henry’s  future  might  be  wrecked  by  a  careless  word,  was  on  his  guan  ; 
Much  of  the  time  it  reminded  one  of  a  duel  with  swords.  The  docte 
neither  weakened  nor  strengthened  the  case.  The  fact  was  that  ever  : 
point  had  already  been  clearly  made  by  Darrow.  Sweet’s  testimor 
closed  the  third  week  and  the  second  act  of  the  trial. 

There  was  a  buzzing,  a  humming,  on  the  morning  of  Darrow’s  fin;  J 
argument.  Expectancy  filled  the  crowd.  As  quietly  as  when  he  made  h 
opening  statement,  Darrow  went  over  to  the  jury. 

“Mr.  Moll  has  told  you,”  he  began,  “that  this  is  a  case  of  murde 
That  there  is  no  prejudice  in  it.  I  haven’t  a  doubt  but  what  all  of  yc 
are  prejudiced  against  colored  men — maybe  one  or  two  of  you  are  no 
We  don’t  want  to  be  prejudiced,  but  we  are.  I  fancy  everyone  of  yc 
is,  otherwise  you’d  have  some  companions  in  that  race.  I  believe  youh 
tried  to  rise  above  it,  but  to  say  there  is  no  prejudice  in  this  case  is  not 
sense.  You  gentlemen,  bring  these  feelings  into  the  jury  box — they  ai 
part  of  your  lifelong  training.  You  needn’t  tell  me  you’re  not  prejudice 
All  I  hope  for  is  that  you’re  strong  enough,  honest  enough,  decent  enoug 
to  lay  prejudice  aside  in  this  case.  Would  that  mob  have  been  standir 


Marcet  Haldeman- Julius 


71 


front  of  that  house  if  the  people  there  weren’t  black?  Would  anybody 
asking  you  to  send  this  boy  to  prison  for  life  if  he  were  not  black? 
Mr.  Moll  right  when  he  says  prejudice  has  nothing  to  do  with  this 
ie?”  Scorn  dripped  from  his  tone.  “Take  the  hatred  out  of  this 
ie  and  you  have  nothing  left.” 

He  took  up  Moll’s  statement  that  the  state  held  a  brief  for  Breiner. 
ince  he  has  talked  about  Breiner,  I’m  going  to  talk  about  him,”  he 
dared.  “Henry  Sweet  never  knew  such  a  man  lived  as  Breiner.  Some- 
fy  shot  into  the  crowd  and  Breiner  got  it.  I’ll  tell  you  who  he  was — 
was  a  conspirator  in  as  foul  a  conspiracy  as  ever  was  hatched — to 
ive  from  their  home  a  little  group  of  black  people  and  to  stab  the  Con- 
ution  under  which  they  lived.  He  had  already  been  down  to  the 
;ner  two  or  three  times  that  night  and  had  come  back  to  the  Dove’s 
ps  where  the  crowd  had  collected.  If  Breiner  was  innocent,  then 
•ry  man  there  was  innocent.  There  were  no  innocent  people  there. 
ey  had  gathered  as  the  Roman  populace  gathered  at  the  Coliseum 
see  the  slaves  fed  to  the  lions.  He  sat  there  while  boys  came  and 
ned  these  black  people’s  home.  Did  he  raise  his  hand  to  stop  them? 

.  He  was  there  for  a  circus  and  the  circus  hadn’t  begun.  They  had  - 
ne  early  (those  people  at  the  Dove  house)  to  take  their  places  at  the 
^  side.” 

Scathingly  he  showed  the  absurdity  of  Moll’s  characterization  of 
m  as  a  “neighborly  crowd.”  “Neighbors!  Bringing  the  Sweets  greet- 
s  and  good  cheer!  Where  did  he  get  that  fool  word  anyhow!  Neigh¬ 
's  in  the  sense  an  undertaker  is  when  he  comes  to  carry  out  a  corpse — 
it  was  the  wrong  corpse.” 

He  emphasized  that  for  nearly  a  year  the  Sweets  had  not  been  able 
pccup'y  their  home,  that  for  three  months  last  fall  they  were  kept  in 
.  “Where,”  he  demanded,  “do  we  live?  Are  we  human!  Moll 
1  no  one  disputed  their  right  to  live  in  that  house.  Yet  the  people 
•  to  drive  them  out.  These  same  people  have  lied  and  lied  and  lied 
send  them  to  prison  so  they  won’t  come  back.” 

“I  want  to  be  fair” — he  drawled,  adding  in  that  candid  way  of 
—“and  if  I  did  not,  I  think  it  would  pay  me  to  be.  Are  the  people  in 
>  neighborhood  worse  than  other  people  ?  They’ve  lied  and  are  trying 
*et  you  in  on  the  job,  but  are  they  any  worse  than  other  people?  I 
’t  think  they  are.  What  do  you  know  about  prejudice?  Those  people 
estly  believe  they  are  better  than  the  blacks.  I  don’t.  They  honestly 
eve  colored  people  are  an  inferior  race.  They  are  obsessed  with 
aticism.  And  when  people  are  obsessed  with  fanaticism  they  become 
p.  But  gentlemen,  they  oughtn’t  to  ask  you  to  be  cruel  for  them. 

;  a  pretty  dirty  job  to  turn  over  to  a  jury.” 

|  And  then  succinctly,  accurately,  he  began  to  tear  to  pieces,  shred 

!  shred,  the  testimony  the  state  had  offered.  He  brought  out  both  all 
conflicting  points  and  all  the  significant  similarities  of  phrasing. 
>arently  not  a  word  had  escaped  him.  Moll  had  spoken  of  facts  and 
ijlenly  under  Darrow’s  sure  hand  they  peppered  forth  like  well-aimed 
s  from  a  gatling  gun.  It  was  a  masterly  proceeding,  that  swift, 


72 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Two  Great  Trials 


unerring,  sifting  analysis  of  testimony.  It  kept  us  on  the  jump  just  fc  • 
lowing  it.  And  as  Clarence  Darrow  knows  only  too  well  that  not  f>  L 
long  can  the  average  man  hold  his  mind  to  its  highest  level,  he  let  lig 
and  shade  flicker  through  all  his  utterance.  At  one  moment  lumps  we 
in  our  throats.  At  another  we  were  smiling.  It  was  in  this  mood  th  jj 
we  listened  to  his  review  of  the  mothers  looking  for  their  childre  j 
“gathering  the  chickens  before  the  storm” — if  indeed  they  were  speakii  lj 
the  truth  and  were  not  intent  merely  upon  joining  the  crowd  of  fathe  ’ 
who,  also  grown  suddenly  dutiful,  were  quite  as  diligently  searching  h  ( 
their  sons.  Yet  even  in  such  moments  Darrow’s  scorn  simmered.  Nev 
were  we  allowed,  by  some  subtle  magic  of  his  own,  to  forget  that  befo  i 
Henry  loomed  imprisonment. 

an 

Presently  under  the  lash  of  Darrow’s  tongue  came,  one  by  or  ^ 
the  people  who  had  testified  that  there  were  only  forty  or  fifty  at  tl  »£ 
Howe  School  meeting :  “Andrews  was  the  only  man  who  rememben  y, 
who  spoke  at  that  meeting  or  what  the  speaker  said.  Did  the  othe  a 
lie?  Yes,  they  lied.  They  lied  because  they  knew  that  the  speaker  h; 
urged  men  to  return  to  the  primitive  beasts  that  roamed  the  jungle  ai 
with  their  bare  hands  or  clubs  drive  out  these  black  people  from  the 
home.  And  there  were  detectives  there!  (Schuknecht  had  admitt 
this.)  They  had  heard  a  man  make  a  speech  that  would  have  sent  ai 
colored  man  or  political  crusader  to  jail.  Advocating  violence !  W1 
wasn’t  he  arrested?  A  man  haranguing  a  crowd  to  violence  and  crime 
the  presence  of  officers !  And  the  crowd  applauded  this  mad  ai 
criminal  speech.”  I  can  assure  you  that  he  left  no  doubt  in  the  juror 
minds  of  the  animus  of  the  crowd  that  (made  up  of  these  self-sar 
people)  a  few  weeks  later  “gathered  there  with  the  backing  of  the  laV 
who  let  children  go  in  front  of  them  and  throw  stones — like  a  band 
coyotes  baying  a  victim  to  death.” 

And  then  he  came  back  to  the  economic  side  of  it.  He  pointed  o 
that  the  Negroes  in  Detroit  had  to  live  somewhere.  In  Jovian  fashii 
he  dealt  squarely  with  the  depreciation-of-property  fear  offered  by  t' 
neighborhood  as  a  justification.  He  pointed  out  that  buying  proper 
always  had  been  a  gamble — that  in  olden  days  it  was  a  livery  stable  tl 
people  used  to  dread.  Now  a  garage  or  even  a  filling  station,  cou 
bring  property  values  down  over  night.  Yet  citizens  would  not  co 
sider  themselves  privileged,  because  of  this  fact,  to  mob  the  owners. 

He  reminded  the  jury  that  the  Police  Department  of  Detroit  h; 
felt  it  necessary  “to  detail  four  policemen  to  see  that  a  family  con 
move  into  a  house  they  owned  without  getting  their  throats  cut.”  “I 
race  problem  in  this !”  he  exclaimed.  “Oh,  no,  this  is  a  plain  murd 
case.”  Then  after  a  pause,  “Pretty  tough,  isn’t  it?  Aren’t  you  gl 
you  aren’t  black!  You  deserve  a  lot  of  credit  for  it.” 

Quietly,  abruptly,  he  turned  from  all  the  data  with  which,  as  wi 
bits  of  a  puzzle,  he  had  been  building  a  picture  of  the  truth  and  i 
flectively,  in  scholarly  fashion,  he  began  to  teach.  “Nature,”  he  e- 
plained,  “has  her  own  way.  She  has  plenty  of  time.  She  sends  a  giaci 
across  a  continent  and  it  takes  fifty  thousand  years  before  the  land 
fit  to  plow  again.  .  .  .  She  wants  to  make  a  race  and  it  takes  | 


Marcet  Haldeman-Julius  73 


infinite  mixture  to  do  it  .  .  .  sometime  we’ll  look  back  on  a  trial 

ike  this  with  a  feeling  of  shame  and  disgust.  If  a  colored  man  hasn’t 
i  right  to  live  somewhere — ”  it  was  a  mellow  Darrow  speaking  at  this 
joint — “you’d  better  take  him  out  and  kill  him.”  Then  sharply,  “Did 
he  Sweets  have  a  right  to  be  afraid  ?  These  people  had  come  over  to 
Irive  them  out.  TIenry  knew  it.  The  people  knew  it.  The  Sweets 
vere  confronted  with  the  mob.  They  were  menaced.  Their  house  was 
.tormed.  They  shot.” 

|  I  have  barely  skimmed  a  few  of  the  points  that  Darrow  made  in 
hat  beautiful,  long  plea,  given  in  the  moving,  majestic  fashion  that  is 
jossible  only  because  of  the  wealth  of  his  own  nature.  It  would  take 
m  article  far  longer  than  this  is  in  its  entirety  to  review  it  properly. 
‘You  have,”  he  said  to  the  jurors,  as  he  neared  the  end  of  his  argument, 
‘a  chance  to  pass  upon  a  real  case  that  will  mean  something  to  the  race, 
/our  verdict  means  something  more  than  a  verdict  for  this  boy.  It  is 
i  milestone.” 

Turning  to  Henry  he  cried,  tone  and  gesture  charged  with  tragic 
mport,  “What’s  this  boy  done?  Am  I  standing  in  a  court  of  justice 
[vhere  twelve  men  are  asked  to  take  away  his  liberty?  Maybe  Dr. 
sweet  ought  not  to  have  gone  there.  Maybe  they  erred  in  judgment. 
Vlaybe  Henry  shot  too  quick,  but  Dr.  Sweet  was  his  brother,  he  loved 
lim,  he  had  taken  him  into  his  home,  he  was  helping  him  get  his  educa- 
ion  to  take  his  place  in  the  world.  Henry  went  to  help  defend  his 
irother.  Do  you  think  more  or  less  of  him  for  it?  The  president  of 
lis  college,  his  teachers,  his  bishop,  have  testified  that  he  is  kind,  well- 
lisposed — as  decent  and  human  as  any  of  you  twelve  men.  Do  you 
hink  he  should  be  taken  out  of  school,  and  put  into  the  penitentiary?” 

Twice  he  almost  concluded,  and  then,  as  if  some  deep  instinct 
varned  him  that  he  had  not  yet  said  quite  all — that  perhaps  he  had 
left  uncovered  in  the  minds  of  those  men  before  him  some  tiny  point 
lpon  which  might  hinge  that  kind,  splendid  young  colored  chap’s  whole 
future — he  would  go  on.  Few  of  us  will  ever  forget  the  picture  of 
aim  as  he  stood,  worn  after  the  long  day  of  intense,  if  for  the  most 
part  quiet,  pleading.  With  arm  uplifted,  on  a  level  with  his  breast, 
land  out-spread  in  that  typical  gesture  of  his  when  he  wants  his  lis- 
eners  to  concentrate,  his  eyes  searching  the  very  hearts  of  the  men 
oefore  him,  he  spoke  once  more  of  the  long  road  ahead  of  the  Negro, 
pf  the  sorrows,  the  tribulations,  that  confronted  him,  urged  the  jury 
lot  to  put  anything  further  in  his  way;  impressed  upon  them  the  des- 
lerate  need  both  white  and  colored  folk  had  for  sanity  and  courage. 
‘I  ask  you,  gentlemen,”  he  said,  “in  behalf  of  the  progress  and  under- 
landing  of  the  human  race  that  you  return  a  verdict  of  ‘Not  Guilty.’  ” 
To  many  of  us  he  seemed  like  one  of  the  prophets  of  old  come  to  speak 
jj-  word  of  warning  and  of  guidance.  That  plea  was  a  mighty  climax 
v’hich  made  inevitable  the  final  curtain. 

The  last  act  of  this  drama  opened  the  next  day  with  Mr.  Toms’ 
ebuttal.  It  was  not  such  a  poor  summing  up,  either,  but  somehow 
1  reminded  one  of  the  clatter  of  folding  chairs  after  a  symphony  con- 
ert.  Wednesday,  Judge  Murphy,  in  a  masterly  and  fearless  charge,  set 


74 


Clarence  Darrow’s  Tivo  Great  Trials 


forth  the  law.  He  left  little  doubt  of  the  jury’s  duty.  All  afternoo 
these  twelve  men  deliberated.  Once  they  sent  out  for  further  instrut 
tions  and  loud  wrangling  issued  as  the  door  opened.  The  judge  r< 
fused,  saying  that  he  had  covered  everything  in  his  charge.  Peop] 
were  scattered  all  through  the  building.  Newspapermen  kept  their  eye 
on  the  clock,  thoughts  of  the  last  edition  in  their  minds.  Only  Glad) 
Sweet  and  a  few  of  her  friends  waited  inside  the  enclosure. 

Suddenly,  at  one  minute  to  five,  came  a  loud  knocking  on  the  jur 
door.  There  was  an  inpouring  from  the  halls.  In  the  excitement  n 
one  could  locate  that  engaging,  ever  sociable  person,  Frank  Nolan,  tl 
clerk.  Judge  Murphy,  in  a  voice  raised  for  him,  put  his  head  into  t! 
courtroom  and  said  sternly:  “Don’t  bring  that  jury  in  until  we  are  read 
for  them.”  People  continued  to  gather  swiftly  until  the  room  was  moi 
crowded  than  on  any  day  of  the  trial.  A  wait,  while  throats  tightenei 
In  desperation,  another  clerk  was  secured.  Henry  Sweet,  his  ham 
pressed  together,  stood  for  a  moment,  his  face  to  the  wall.  His  chi 
quivered.  At  last — the  jury  door  was  unlocked,  and  the  men,  in  singi 
file,  marched  in,  headed  by  the  foreman.  The  regular  question  w; 
put:  “Have  you  gentlemen  in  the  course  of  your  deliberations  reache 
a  verdict  in  the  case  of  Henry  Sweet?  And  if  so  who  will  answer  fc 
you?”  And  then  (from  the  Cunard  Anchor  Lines  man):  “We  hay 
and  I  will.”  Stillness  that  pressed  and  hurt.  With  an  effort,  Smag 
cleared  his  throat.  “Not  Guilty,”  he  said,  and  his  voice  broke. 

Toms,  incredulous,  asked  to  have  the  verdict  repeated.  And  the 
in  the  emotional  relief,  there  were  sobs,  laughs,  warm  congratulation 
Few  eyes  were  dry.  Even  that  cool,  unemotional  man,  Mr.  Chawk; 
was  unable  for  a  moment- to  speak.  Tears  rolled  down  the  cheeks  < 
Clarence  Darrow  and  of  Henry  Sweet. 


He  denounces  people’s 
oet  notions  and  makes 
them  like  it! 


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Works  of 

DARROW 


18  THRILLING  SECTIONS 

Containing  these  27  Titles: 


acing  Life  Fearlessly. 

he  Lord’s  Day  Alliance.  A  brief  against 
Blue  Sundays. 

lsects  and  Men:  Instinct  and  Reason, 
oltaire,  the  Man  Who  Fooled  Priest  and 
King. 

.  Capital  Punishment  Justified? 

Debate  vs.  Judge  Alfred  J.  Talley. 

.  Prohibition  Right? 

Debate  vs.  John  Haynes  Holmes. 

Life  Worth  Living? 

Debate  vs.  Frederick  Starr. 

.  the  Human  Race  Getting  Anywhere? 
Debate  vs.  Frederick  Starr, 
he  Skeleton  in  the  Closet.  Famous  lecture, 
ssay  on  Walt  Whitman, 
ssay  on  John  P.  Altgeld. 
ealism  in  Literature  and  Art. 
ssay  on  Robert  Burns, 
ssay  on  George  Burman  Foster. 


Some  Paragraphs  Addressed  to  Socialists. 
The  Ordeal  of  Prohibition. 

The  Edwardses  and  the  Jukeses. 

Question  of  heredity  discussed. 

Are  We  Machines?  Debate  vs.  Dr.  Will  Durant. 
Can  the  Individual  Control  His  Conduct? 

Debate  vs.  Prof.  T.  V.  Smith. 

Dry-Law  Pro  and  Con. 

Debate  vs.  Wayne  B.  Wheeler. 

Do  Human  Beings  Have  Free  Will? 

Debate  vs.  Prof.  Geo.  Burman  Foster. 

Resist  Not  Evil. 

Doctrine  of  non-resistance  discussed. 

An  Eye  for  an  Eye.  Complete  novel. 

Plea  in  Defense  of  Loeb  and  Leopold,  the 
Boy  Murderers. 

Darrow  vs.  Bryan  in  the  Famous  Scopes 
Anti-Evolution  Trial. 

Defense  of  a  Negro. 

Famous  Dr.  Sweet  trial  in  Detroit. 

A  Day  with  Clarence  Darrow. 


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The  Author  of  “ The  Story  of  Religious  Controversy ” 
and  “ The  Key  to  Culture,”  to  mention  only  two  of  the 
works  of  Joseph  McCabe,  sets  forth  in  this  eight-volume 
series  a  complete  encyclopedia  of  sex.  This  is  the  most 
comprehensive  ivork  of  its  kind  ever  published  at  so  low 
a  price. 

The  KEY 


to 


and 


(IN  EIGHT  VOLUMES) 
By 

JOSEPH  McCABE 


IN  some  220,000  words,  Joseph  McCabe  tells  all  you  have  wanted 
to  know  about  love  and  sex.  He  gives  you  the  history,  the 
psychology,  the  physiology,  the  abnormalities,  the  sociology, 
the  morality,  of  these  vital  subjects.  He -faces  the  future  with 
encouraging  optimism.  Happiness  is  the  keynote:  Joseph  Mc¬ 
Cabe  gives  you  FACTS,  and  ANSWERS  your  questions,  so  that 
you,  too,  may  find  happiness  in  your  experiences  with  love  and 
sex.  No  matter  how  many  books  you  have  read  before,  you  will 
find  Joseph  McCabe’s  Key  to  Love  and  Sex  full  of  information 
you  have  encountered  nowhere  else.  From  a  lifetime  of  scholar¬ 
ship,  this  writer  has  assembled  for  you  a  mass  of  data  never  before 
crammed  into  a  popularly  priced  work  of  this  kind. 


rhe  Key  to  Love  and  Sex 

COMPLETE  CONTENTS 
8  Volumes — 467  Pages — 220,000  Words 


r.  WHAT  SEX  REALLY  IS  (What 
stinguishes  the  male  from  the  female 

s,  physically,  emotionally,  intellectually, 
— XI)  Fundamental  Distinctions  of 

3. Sexes:  differences  of  organ  and  func- 
in,  secondary  sexual  characters,  meaning 
hermaphrodites;  (2)  The  Evolution  of 
,ve:  animal  development,  love  as  a  dis- 
ct  emotion,  Platonic  love;  (3)  The  Dawn 
Sex  in  the  Individual:  does  sex  begin  at 
:th?  the  child  and  its  sex  feelings,  the 
Solution  of  puberty,  the  decay  of  sex- 

!e;  (4)  The  Essential  Relations  of  the 
xes:  normal  sexual  intercourse,  refine- 
l:nt  of  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  inter- 
jrrse  and  procreation;  (5)  The  Normal 
lychology  of  Woman:  basis  in  the  ner- 
ijrs  system,  periodic  disturbances,  con- 
rvative  bias  of  woman,  coyness  and  cold- 
3s;  (6)  Variations  from  the  Sex-Type: 
isculine  women,  effeminate  men,  effects 
C  castration  and  ovariotomy;  (7)  Mater- 
ry  and  Birth  Control:  normal  child-bear- 
ii;,  need  of  birth  control. 

[I.  THE  ANTAGONISM  BETWEEN 
HE  SEXES  (The  historical  facts  behind 
Lquality  and  the  goal  of  freedom  and 
fual  rights). —  (1)  Primitive  Equality: 
uman  amongst  the  lowest  peoples,  begin- 
ngs  of  inequality,  causes  of  inequality; 
j)  Sex-Life  of  Primitive  Peoples:  normal 
sx-life,  curiosities  of  savage  sex-life,  orgies 
td  the  spring-fever;  (3)  Religion  and  the 
I've-Urge:  the  cult  of  fertility,  rise  of 
."etic  ideas;  (4)  Morbid  Influence  of  the 
3hical  Religions:  sex  in  ancient  civiliza- 
lins,  spread  of  ascetic  religions,  influence 
<  Christianity  on  woman;  (5)  Medieval 
Woman:  return  to  sav- 
freedom,  the  rule  of  the 
j  Age  of  Chivalry:  romantic 
-is,  free  love  and  the  troubadours,  cruel 
isition  of  the  majority;  (7)  The  Next 
,iase — and  Its  Survivals:  woman  in  the 


depths,  the  cave  man  and  the  clinging 
vine,  the  self-sacrificing  woman;  (8)  Mod¬ 
ern  Emancipation:  beginning  of  the  strug¬ 
gle  for  rights,  character  of  the  leaders,  the 
economic  complication. 

III.  WOMAN  AND  MARRIAGE  (Prob¬ 
lems  of  morals,  divorce,  sexual  revolt,  free 
love,  children,  etc.).— (1)  Sources  of  the 
Chastity  Ideal:  woman’s  normal  “unclean¬ 
ness,”  the  mystery  of  childbirth,  woman’s 
diseases;  (2)  Woman  as  Economic  Prop¬ 
erty:  the  male  instinct  of  monopoly,  value 
of  chaste  daughters,  different  standards  of 
male  and  female  chastity;  (3)  The  Sacri¬ 
fice  of  Love:  priestess-prostitutes,  theory  of 
sacrifice,  eunuch-priests;  (4)  The  Greco- 
Roman  Reaction:  Persian  ideas  of  the 
flesh  and  the  spirit,  ascetism  in  Egypt  and 
India,  influence  of  the  Greek  philosophers, 
the  unoriginality  of  Jesus  and  Paul;  (5) 
Triumph  of  the  Eunuch-Moralists:  failure 
of  the  church  for  a  thousand  years,  the 
eventual  control  of  marriage;  (6)  The 
Struggle  for  Divorce  and  Sanity:  perplexi¬ 
ties  of  Luther,  marriage  after  the  Refor¬ 
mation,  beginning  of  secularization;  (7) 
Rise  of  Modern  Puritanism:  skeptical 
ascetics  of  the  19th  century,  the  moral 
argument  for  religion,  consequences  of  the 
new  virtue,  latest  feminist  Puritanism;  (8) 
The  True  Ethic  of  Sex:  moral  science  and 
chastity,  genuine  limits  of  free  love,  prob¬ 
lems  of  the  home  and  the  state. 

IV.  ABNORMAL  ASPECTS  OF  SEX 
(Perversities  and  aberrations  of  the  human 
sexual  impulse  and  its  expression). —  (1) 
Abnormal  Sex-Life  Among  Savages:  why 
it  is  comparatively  rare,  abnormal  conduct; 
(2)  Abnormal  Sex-Life  in  Ancient  Civili¬ 
zations:  in  ancient  times,  other  abnormali¬ 
ties;  (3)  Scientific  Study  of  Abnormali¬ 
ties:  pre-scientific  literature  about  sex, 
medical  study  in  the  19th  century,  modern 


j;gradation  c 
;ery  without 
tmks;  (6)  T1 


The  Key  to  Love  and  Sex  (Contents  Continued) 


psychology  of  sex;  (4)  The  Practice  of 
Masturbation:  extent  of  the  practice, 
modern  views  of  the  effect;  (5)  Erotic 
Symbolism  and  Other  Phenomena:  sexual 
fetishism,  exhibitionism;  (6)  Sadism  and 
Masochism:  modern  study  of  sadism, 
flagellation,  masochism;  (7)  The  Homo¬ 
sexual  Impulse:  the  homosexual  tempera¬ 
ment,  modern  views,  homosexuals  and  the 
law;  (8)  Sex  and  Insanity. 

V.  WOMAN  AND  THE  CREATIVE 
URGE  (Sex  and  love  and  their  place  in 
art  down  through  the  ages). —  (1)  Woman 
as  an  Inspiration  of  Art:  the  dawn  of  art, 
the  growing  sense  of  beauty,  the  artistic 
urge  of  love  and  mysticism;  (2)  Sexual 
Selection  and  Feminine  Beauty:  evolution 
of  the  feeling  for  the  beautiful,  evolution 
of  beauty  in  woman,  different  national 
types  of  beauty;  (3)  Psychology  of  the 
Artist:  sense-perception  and  sex,  cult  of 
the  nude,  the  rapture  of  the  kiss,  absurd 
Puritan  reactions;  (4)  Relations  of  Sense 
and  Intellect:  harmony  of  human  nature, 
sensuality  and  thought,  sensuality  and 
genius;  (5)  Woman  in  the  Golden  Ages: 
sex  the  predominant  inspiration,  why  few 
women  won  distinction;  (6)  Woman  in 
the  World’s  Literature:  lack  of  historical 
perspective,  element  of  vindictiveness,  the 
conventions  of  literature,  the  lure  of  the 
sex  story;  (7)  Women  Writers  on  Men 
and  Women:  the  curious  inaccuracy  of 
women  writers  on  women,  the  new  type  of 
woman  writer,  the  idols  of  the  woman 
novelist. 

VI.  WHAT  IS  THE  “MYSTERY”  OF 
WOMAN?  (How  fables  about  “mysterious 
woman”  began:  the  facts  about  feminine 
intuition). —  (1)  Legendary  Gifts  of  the 
Chaste  Woman:  the  raw  material  of  the 
chastity  ideal,  virgin  oracles  and  virgin- 
goddesses,  early  Christian  celibacy;  (2) 
The  Erotic  Element  in  Religion:  sex  and 
religion,  the  orgie  in  paganism  and  the 
early  church,  freaks  of  the  Egyptian  desert, 
medieval  mystics,  orgies  in  modern' sects; 
(3)  Modem  Views  about  Chastity  and 
Mysticism:  the  matron  and  the  bachelor 
girl,  the  charm  of  the  chaste  woman,  the 


compensating  vices;  (4)  The  Truth  abo 
Woman  and  Religion:  the  evidence  of  st  * 
tistics,  woman’s  reasons  for  church-goin 
women  founders  of  sects  and  mysticism 
(5)  The  Physical  Basis  of  Woman’s  M3  1 
tery:  her  nervous  instability,  psychology  V 
periods  of  disturbance,  the  literary  tra< 
tion. 

Pci' 

vn.  WHAT  SHOULD  BE  TAUGB  f) 
ABOUT  SEX?  (What  are  the  real  effec  ^ 
of  modern  freedom  in  sex  discussion  ai 
education?)  —  (1)  The  Evolution  of  Clot  j) 
ing  and  Modesty:  the  immodest  savaj  ^ 
why  he  begins  to  wear  clothes,  developme  g 
and  nature  of  modesty,  recent  changes  ^ 
the  idea  of  modesty;  (2)  Erotic  Aspec  jj 
of  the  Bath  and  the  Dance:  evolution  jj 
cleanliness,  baths  and  sexual  freedom,  c 
velopment  of  the  dance;  (3)  Effects 
Concealment  and  Isolation:  Puritan  mod 
and  morals,  homosexual  institutions,  c  * 
mands  of  public  decency;  (4)  Sex-Instrt  * 
tion  of  the  Young:  evils  of  ignorance,  se 
life  of  the  child,  modem  views  about  i 
struction;  (5)  The  Problem  of  the  Ad 
lescent:  sex-psychology  of  the  girl,  the  1 
volt  of  youth,  companionate  marriage  ai 
free  love;  (6)  Modem  Interest  in  Sexr  t 
historical  causes,  the  rise  of  science,  t, 
study  of  venereal  diseases;  (7)  The  Re\ 
lutionary  Discovery  of  Birth  Control:  fro 
abortion  to  contraception,  the  bearing  1 
morality. 

Vm.  THE  QUEST  FOR  SEXUJ 
HAPPINESS  (Modern  trends  toward  a 
justment  and  harmony  in  sexual  relatio 
ships). — Introduction:  The  Philosophy 
History;  (1)  Marriage  As  It  Is:  the  tai 
in  Christian  marriage,  poisoned  lives  ai 
perverted  instincts,  the  surplus  of  womei 
(2)  The  Revolt  of  Woman:  recoil  fro 
subjection,  the  demand  of  economic  ind 
pendence;  (3)  Real  Needs  of  the  Stat 
the  population  question,  problem  of  t! 
child,  the  question  of  modesty;  (4)  T. 
Future  Evolution  of  Marriage:  value 
permanent  unions,  the  function  of  divorc 
social  groupings  of  the  future,  free  lov 
(5)  The  Problem  of  Prostitution:  histo 
of  prostitution,  its  extent  and  control  1 
day,  future  development;  (6)  Developme 
of  Sex-Types:  attempts  at  equality  ai 
sexlessness,  the  approach  of  the  sexes,  t 
philosophy  of  pleasure. 


JOW 


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*ctive  lacking  in  the  specialist.  But  he  has  gone  to  specialists 
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;  definite  purpose  of  helping  you  to  find  happiness  and  content- 
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“THE  STORY  OF  RELIGIOUS  CONTROVERSY” 


BY  JOSEF 


McCABf 


ONE  VOLU  vl 
641  PAGES 


To  satisfy  the  demands  of 
thousands  of  readers  of  Joseph 
McCabe’s  works,  we  have  sc¬ 
oured  this  clothbound  edition  of 
‘‘The  Story  of  lleligious  Contro¬ 
versy,”  which  tells  the  facts 
about  man  and  his  religions: 
about  man.  and  his  self-created 
gods. 


A  SUPERB  GIFT 

There  could  be  no  finer  gift,  fron 
one  liberal  to  another,  than  a  copy  o 
Joseph  McCabe’s  “Story  of  Religion 
Controversy,’’  clothbound  edition,  a 
$4.S5  postpaid. 


TITLES  OF  THE  32  VIVID  CHAPTERS 


Introduction,  by  E.  Haldeman-Julius 
The  Revolt  Against  Religion 
The  Origin  of  Religion 
A  Few  of  the  World’s  Great  Religions 
The  Myth  of  Immortality 
The  Futility  of  Belief  in  God 
The  Human  Origin  of  Morals 
The  Forgery  of  the  Old  Testament 
Religion  and  Morals  in  Ancient  Baby¬ 
lon 

Religion  and  Morals  in  Ancient  Egypt 
Life  and  Morals  in  Greece  and  Rome 
Phallic  (Sex)  Elements  in  Religion 
Did  Jesus  Ever  Live? 

The  Sources  of  Christian  Morality 
Pagan  Christs  Before  Jesus 
Legends  of  Saints  and  Martyrs 
How  Christianity  Triumphed 
The  Evolution  of  Christian  Doctrine 


The  Degradation  of  Woman 
Christianity  and  Slavery 
The  Church  and  the  School 
The  Dark  Ages 
New  Light  on  Witchcraft 
The  Horrors  of  the  Inquisition 
Medieval  Art  and  the  Church 
The  Moorish  Civilization  in  Spain 
The  Renaissance:  A  European  Avi 
ening 

The  Reformation  and  Protestant 
action 

The  Truth  About  Galileo  and  M 
eval  Science 

The  Jesuits:  Religious  Rogues 
The  Conflict  Between  Science 
Religion 

Do  We  Need  Religion? 

The  Triumph  of  Materialism 


SUCH  TRUTHS  WERE  NEVER  WRITTEN  BE  FORI 

Man  has  struggled  for  centuries  to  penetrate  the  “veil,”  to  solve 
riddle  of  life.  This  struggle  has  been  called — in  its  various  “successei 
Religion.  In  this  book,  Joseph  McCabe,  eminent  scholar,  tells  the  si  or 
religion  from  the  first  tribal  tabus  to  the  present  day.  For  the  first  1 
the  complete  history  of  religion,  based  on  authentic  documents,  has  ! 
told  truthfully.  McCabe  has  fearlessly  written  a  story  no  one  else  has  d; 
to  tell! 

There  is  no  other  book  like  this:  there  has  never  been  a  book  at  ail 
this.  The  author,  Joseph  McCabe,  was  for  twelve  years  a  recluse  i 
monastery.  There  he  caught  the  first  glimmerings  of  the  thesis  he  pret 
in  this  amazing,  startling  work.  Courageously  he  has  faced  this  all  iiri 
tant  question  •of  Religion.  Without  fear  he  has  sought  out  the  facts  and 
put  them  down  in  cold  black  and  white.  To  read  this  book  will  be  a  revel; 
and  an  education  such  as  you  have  never  experienced  before.  The  pri< 
only  $4.85 — special  to  Haldeman-Julius  readers. 


SPECIAL  PRICE 

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Regular  $5  edition  “The  Story  of  Religious 
troversy,”  by  Joseph  McCabe,  bound  in  red  It.a 
grained  cloth,  stamped  in  gold  letters,  complete 
Index,  size  6)4x914  inches,  weight  3  pounds 
chapters,  641  pages,  printed  on  eggshell  pcq 
specially  priced  at  $4.85  postpaid. 


Haldeman-Julius  Publications,  Girard,  Kansas 


Pamphlets . 


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Vol.905 

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